Another day, another ad campaign starring Sydney Sweeney going viral and sparking backlash.
A little over a year after Sweeney’s controversial American Eagle “Good Jeans” ad campaign, the actress is making headlines for her provocative new commercial for sports prediction market Novig.
On Thursday’s show, Megyn was joined by Emily Jashinsky, host of MK Media’s After Party, to discuss the outcry to the ad, particularly from female athletes, and the truth about women’s sports and sports betting.
The Controversial Campaign
Sweeney and her voluptuous body are front and center in a new one-minute ad for sports betting site Novig.
In one scene, Sweeney is covering her bosom with two footballs. In another, she is naked–save for her strategically placed blonde locks–straddling a basketball hoop. More modest moments from the ad feature the Euphoria star wearing Novig-emblazoned boxer shorts (sans top) and hockey pads.
“No betting on wars or deaths and no politics,” Sweeney says at one point. “Just you, your takes and sports.”
Amid a montage of the 29 year old posing with other sports paraphernalia (think: soccer balls, tennis rackets, baseball bats) and rolling around half naked on a pool table, she says the word “sports” a lot.
The Backlash
At no point in the ad does the actress suggest she is an athlete, but that hasn’t stopped female athletes from taking issue with it. Since being released last Wednesday, Novig and Sweeney have been the topic of countless critical op-eds and think pieces accusing them of encouraging objectification and minimizing women’s contributions to sports.
On Friday, former college gymnast Gracie Kramer posted a video compilation of her past routines on TikTok with the caption: “idk what Sydney Sweeney was doing, but this is what a woman in sports looks like.” And it didn’t take long for others to follow suit with posts of themselves running and skiing or playing basketball and water polo. On Monday, British sprinter Amy Hunt addressed Sweeney on the BBC after finishing a 200-meter final.
“Sydney Sweeney, this is what women in sport look like,” she claimed. “Muscles, hard work, sweat, blood, tears.”
Sweeney, for her part, tacitly responded to the controversy over the weekend by posting a series of covers from ESPN magazine’s annual “Body Issue,” which has featured female athletes like Serena Williams, Sue Bird, Megan Rapinoe, and more in various states of undress.
The Real ‘Victims’
Megyn and Jashinsky failed to understand the controversy. “She never purported to be a woman in sports. She never said this is what a woman in sports looks like. She just said ‘sports,’ ‘sports,’ ‘this is sports,’ ‘sports’ and was promoting, for the most part, sports that are dominated by men, like football and basketball,” Megyn noted.
Jashinsky agreed and called it an “incredible stretch” to suggest otherwise. “Sydney Sweeney wasn’t holding herself up as an example of a real female athlete. If the ad had said, ‘This is what a real female athlete looks like’ and it’s Sydney Sweeney airbrushed, looking beautiful and like she hasn’t sweat at all, okay. But that’s actually not even what the ad said. There was no implication,” she noted.
Instead, Jashinsky believes Novig–which has certainly succeeded in boosting its name recognition this past week–was just trying to sell men on gambling. “The reflex to say that this is somehow victimizing women–I mean, if anything, this is using soft pornography to get young men addicted to sports betting,” she posited.
“There are all kinds of disagreements with [sports betting]… but there are all kinds of bad outcomes statistically that you can see happening with sports betting,” she explained. “So, if anything, they should be upset about Sydney Sweeney exploiting her body and her fame to help get… men across the income spectrum, but particularly economically disadvantaged and desperate men, addicted to a sports betting app.”
Missing the Point
A piece in The Athletic, which is a subsidiary of The New York Times, accused Sweeney of “ignor[ing] decades of progress” for women and “undermin[ing] female athletes’ work to be recognized for their ability, reinforcing the idea that women’s greatest value is their sex appeal.”
Megyn wasn’t so sure. “How does it say that’s our greatest value? And by the way, you know what really bothers me about these leftist women? They never acknowledge that it is one of our values, and there is nothing wrong with that either,” she argued.
“It would be a tragedy if that woman didn’t occasionally show off that body… If I look like that, I’d be doing nude ads too,” Megyn continued. “Why is it they’re so judgy about a gorgeous woman who wants to show it, even though they were supposed to be, like, foremothers of the sexual revolution, and we were supposed to be leaning into that, not being apologetic for it. But when you have that person emerge in 2026, almost 2027, America, she has to be shamed. Why again? Because she’s a Republican.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Jashinsky by tuning in to episode 1,400 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s The Megyn Kelly Channel (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.