Sydney Sweeney has been working her entire life to become a successful actress, but lately she’s discovered the darker side of fame, with the paparazzi increasingly obsessed with getting a shot of Hollywood’s “It” girl.
The “Anyone But You” star told Glamour in a recent interview photographers showed up at her new Florida home while she was there with her family and yelled at them to force her to come out in a bikini for a photo.
“They said, ‘If you tell her to just come outside in a bikini, I’ll take pictures and then I’ll leave you alone,’” the 27-year-old told Glamour.
To make it even worse, Sweeney said people on social media suggested she called the paparazzi.
SYDNEY SWEENEY WANTS TO ‘PUSH THE BOUNDARIES’ IN ACTING, DOESN’T LIKE TO REHEARSE
“Why would I call the paparazzi to take pictures of me at my own house when my baby cousins and family are there and I’m in my backyard? Why would I ever want that?” she told the magazine.
She added that she has photos of paparazzi in “kayaks hiding in bushes in the ocean. They got there at 8 a.m. and wouldn’t leave until 4 p.m. I should be able to be in my home and feel comfortable and safe.”
And it’s not just the paparazzi.
“When those photos go out, then my actual safety is at risk,” she said of paparazzi photos of her at home. “Everyone knows where I am. Now there’s boats that go by, and I literally hear them say, ‘This is Sydney Sweeney’s house.’ It becomes a star tour in my front yard.”
Sweeney is notoriously private. Most of her friends are from her childhood, and she keeps her engagement with businessman Jonathan Davino so low-key that fans basically forgot about him when she and “Anyone But You” co-star Glen Powell were swept up in false dating rumors.
“I have my family, and my cousins are my best friends,” Sweeney said. “I have my team and a handful of best friends. It’s very small.”
She added that “most of them — actually, all of them — are not in the industry,” except for “Euphoria” co-star Maude Apatow.
“It’s a very lonely industry,” she added.
Elsewhere in the interview, Sweeney discussed the struggles she went through before she made it in the industry, including severe bullying at school, her parents losing “everything” while driving back and forth from her Eastern Washington/Northern Idaho home to LA to help her audition for roles as a teen and her parents’ divorce.
“There was a moment where I stopped wanting to go home, which made me really sad because I felt like a failure,” she revealed. “I knew that I could never actually fail because, I mean, on a very broad scale, my family did lose everything.
“They did get a divorce. Whether or not that was because of coming here, it definitely was a catalyst for it. So, I knew I had to succeed in some capacity so that it wasn’t for nothing.”
And when it comes to the obsession with her body in the media, Sweeney says she’s trying to embrace it.
She said it “means a lot to her” that fans have reached out to say that they feel more comfortable with their own bodies “because I really believe in empowering others and feeling powerful with your body and embracing your sexuality.”
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“And if you have boobs, great. Flaunt them,” she added, joking that her grandparents claim she has the “best t— in Hollywood.”
