Steamy Sydney Sweeney ad draws backlash from female athletes

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Sydney Sweeney ruffled the feathers of some professional athletes when her ad for the sports trading app Novig dropped last week.

Sweeney was seen in the ad posing in several shots with strategically placed sports equipment covering her mostly nude body.

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Sydney Sweeney poses for a portrait backstage during the 2026 Stagecoach Festival at Empire Polo Club on April 25, 2026, in Indio, Calif. (Getty Images for Stagecoach)

"Think you know sports? Prove it. Novig is just sports. So, they wanted a show," she says in the ad.

Several female athletes didn’t appear to take too kindly to the ad. Australian Olympic gold medalist swimmer Ariarne Titmus, British sprinter Amy Hunt and former American gymnast Gracie Kramer were among those to denounce the ad.

"I can’t describe how infuriated I feel when I watch this," Titmus wrote in a post on Instagram. "How do we live in a world where monetizing a woman’s body and sexualizing women’s sport is still a thing?"

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Sydney Sweeney poses for photographers at the Armani beauty event during the 83rd Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, on Thursday, Sept. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Scott A Garfitt)

Hunt addressed the ad after finishing in fourth place in the 200-meters at the Ultimate Championship in Budapest, Hungary.

"Sydney Sweeney, this is what women in sport look like," she said. "Muscles, hard work, sweat, blood, tears."

Kramer said she was infuriated by the ad as well.

"I’ve spent my entire life competing in a sport where female athletes have been oversexualized, reduced to our bodies, and forced to fight to be taken seriously for what we can actually do," she wrote on Instagram.

Sweeney seemingly shot back at the criticism on Sunday. She went on to show off ESPN magazine covers featuring nude athletes, including Serena Williams, Ronda Rousey, Sue Bird, Megan Rapinoe and Caroline Wozniacki.

Fox News Digital reached out to Sweeney’s representatives for comment. OutKick reached out to Novig for comment.

Sydney Sweeney and Scooter Braun look on during the fourth quarter of Game 5 of the 2026 NBA Finals between the San Antonio Spurs and the New York Knicks at Frost Bank Center on June 13, 2026, in San Antonio, Texas. (Getty Images)

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Sweeney was the target of criticism last year when she collaborated with American Eagle for its fall clothing campaign.

Fox News’ Tracy Wright and The Associated Press contributed to this report.