Sophie Cunningham reveals thoughts on controversial Sydney Sweeney ad amid backlash

Sophie Cunningham is speaking out about Sydney Sweeney's controversial ad. 

The Indiana Fever star took to her podcast, "No Hesitation," with co-host Drew Hanlen, to share her thoughts. Earlier this week, Sweeney caused a stir with her ad for sports betting site Novig, which showed the actress partially nude and covered by sports equipment like basketballs, footballs and soccer balls.  There was a lot of response from female athletes like Olympic swimmer Ariarne Titmus, sprinter Amy Hunt, gymnast Gracie Kramer, water poloist Matilda "Tilly" Kearns, and rugby player Sofie Fella have also condemned the ad. 

Before Cunningham shared her reaction to the ad, she noted that she only met Sweeney once at a NASCAR event last year and spoke for about five minutes. Sweeney, who is an actress most notably known for her role as Cassie in Euphoria, is not an athlete, and Cunningham posed the question of whether she even uses sports betting apps, which would make her being the face of the ad "unauthentic."

However, she was not surprised by how she represented herself in the ad, as Cunningham said, "it's what she's based her whole career off of." 

The WNBA star shared that she does like Sweeney and that she's "beautiful," "hot," and "sticks to her guns," but she doesn't necessarily like the ad, responding, "What are we doing?"

Hanlen said that Novig knew exactly what they were doing given Sweeney's previous controversial ad with American Eagle last year. The NBA trainer noted that sports bettors are mostly young men, which would make Sweeney their target audience and spike traffic from "women being disappointed with the ad and putting her down."

“Why are girls mad? That is literally what she does… Men, sports, naked women. Of course that’s gonna draw attention… Go do your thing sis,” Cunningham said. 

The Fever star did, however, note that "Do I agree with it? Morally I think it's a little weird, but to each their own."

Novig responds to the backlash

Novig has since spoken out about the ad with its CEO Jacob Fortinsky, on Tuesday, sharing his thoughts as part of a panel sponsored by Front Office Sports, and said Sweeney was "driving a lot of the visuals and the messaging" behind the ads.

"It was a very exciting process to work with her both on the commercial side as well as on the creative side," Fortinsky said. "It really was Sydney who was driving a lot of the visuals and the messaging."

"We're hugely supportive of of women's sports. I think it's a huge component our platform," Fortinsky added. "I think we never intended to portray female sports. Sydney's an actress, the biggest movie star in the world."

Sweeney has not shared any comments about the ad but shared posts of female athletes who participated in ESPN's "The Body" issue on her Instagram Story, where some of them were semi-nude. 

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