Hollywood feuds have a way of taking on a life of their own online. Sydney Sweeney is speaking out about how social media turned her working relationship with Zendaya into major drama—and honestly, she’s got a point.
The Euphoria actress addressed the rumored beef in a new Vanity Fair interview, breaking down months of speculation about her friendship with Zendaya on and off the HBO set. According to Sweeney, the real culprit? The internet’s obsession with spinning narratives. “It’s honestly crazy to watch how much social media and the press spin things,” she said.
Here’s what actually went down behind the scenes. “I was in first position to HBO,” Sweeney explained. “So the moment they say, ‘Hey, this is the first day of filming,’ I’m legally not allowed to do anything else. My schedule doesn’t affect the show. And so that was funny to watch everybody spin narratives on it. All of us were in first position, so it wasn’t like any of our schedules were holding it up.”
Since Euphoria premiered in 2019, both Sweeney and Zendaya became the faces of the series. Various theories circulated online, with some suggesting that Sweeney’s alleged political leanings were behind the rift—though neither star has confirmed this.
The bigger issue, Sweeney pointed out, is how information gets filtered through media. “I think what’s really hard is I’m spoken for through journalists. So whatever I say now will be rewritten and posted,” she shared. “People like headlines and not everybody reads an article or listens to a podcast. They want the easy clickbait and whatever is most digestible, most interesting. That’s all they see and that’s what they run with. And then all of a sudden, crazy things just spin from it.”
It’s a reminder that Hollywood feuds often say more about our media consumption habits than about actual beef between stars.
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