After the denim scandal, the next setback follows: Sydney Sweeney’s “Christy” flops at the box office. Why fans and the LGBTQ+ community are turning away now.
The biopic “Christy,” about lesbian boxer Christy Martin and starring Sydney Sweeney, is recording weak box office numbers. There is speculation on social media as to whether the poor visitor ratings in the USA could be related to the shitstorm over a denim advertising campaign with racist undertones – the cross-community was also unimpressed by the film.
Editorial recommendations
Poor box office results for “Christy”
“Christy” tells of the athlete’s rapid rise and the formative events in her private life. A demanding role for Sweeney. In an interview with “W Magazine”, the actress gave insights into her new routines: “I started eating right. I did an hour of strength training in the morning, about two hours of kickboxing at lunchtime and another hour of strength training in the evening.”
Despite the actress’s full physical effort, the film’s opening in the USA was slow: in the first weekend, the film only grossed 1.3 million US dollars – the equivalent of a good one million euros – as data from “The Numbers” shows. The industry journal “Discussing Film” already counts “Christy” as one of the biggest flops of a film that was released in around 2,000 cinemas. On the US rating platform “Rotten Tomatoes”, the film achieved 67 percent on the Tomatometer.
Check out the film trailer here:
Shitstorm recap
Is the poor box office result due to what is known about the work or to the shitstorm that Sydney Sweeney had to deal with before? As a reminder: American Eagle’s advertising campaign with the actress as the protagonist caused discontent on social media. The reason: The 28-year-old advertised the company’s denim products under the slogan “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans”. The claim deliberately played with the ambiguity of the English words “jeans” and “genes” (in German: Gene). But this play on words in particular met with strong criticism. On socials like TikTok and Some commentators even spoke of a recourse to eugenic ideals.
Sweeney’s response to the shitstorm
In the “GQ” interview in early November 2025, Katherine Stoeffel pointed out to the actress that Sweeney’s previous roles had not been explicitly political and asked whether she had been surprised to have become involved in a political debate in a different way – a reference to the campaign. The actress replied, “I did a jeans ad. The reaction to it was definitely a surprise, but I love jeans. I only wear jeans. I literally wear jeans and a t-shirt every day of my life.”
When asked directly about the campaign and the accusations of racism, the actress only had to say: “The advertising campaign speaks for itself. If an issue comes up that I want to talk about, people will notice.”
Sweeney’s message to the LGBTQ+ community is met with displeasure
On the red carpet at the independent drama’s London premiere, Sweeney sent a message to the LGBTQ+ community during the film’s Pink News: “I’m so excited for you to meet Christy. She’s an incredible advocate for this community. It’s a powerful story to be told. I hope the story opens up more projects in this direction.”
However, critical voices spoke out under the Instagram video of the interview. One user commented: “Why are you still giving her a platform?” Another asked, “Do you notice she had nothing to say to our community?” The comments refer to the shitstorm surrounding a denim advertising campaign by Sweeney in collaboration with the fashion brand American Eagle. The advertising partners were accused of racism in the course of the campaign. The outrage continues and was fueled again by an initial statement from the actress.
The shitstorm and Sweeny’s statement about the controversial advertising campaign could have contributed to the empty cinemas. There is still no official date for the cinema release in Germany.