Was Sydney Sweeney’s return to Euphoria a mistake?

She is back on screen with season three of Euphoria.

But Sydney Sweeney is facing backlash for the raunchy role after previously lamenting being ‘sexualised’ throughout her career. 

The 28-year-old actress reprises her role as Cassie Howard, whose storyline takes a controversial turn as she becomes an OnlyFans content creator. 

In one scene, she is dressed as a baby with pigtails and a dummy in her mouth. 

In another, she could be seen shaking her behind in a revealing thong and skimpy puppy costume while straddling a piece of furniture. 

Social media was quickly flooded with outrage, with many viewers accusing the actress of ‘sexualising herself at every opportunity’ in every role she lands. 

They wrote: ‘Why does Sydney Sweeney always have to sexualise things’, ‘Can Sydney Sweeney go one week without doing anything sexual?’, ‘Can somebody tell Sydney Sweeney that not every role she plays has to be sexual?’ 

Sydney told The Independent in 2022 that she believed there was a ‘stigma against actresses who get naked on screen’.

‘When a guy has a sex scene or shows his body, he still wins awards and gets praise. But the moment a girl does it, it’s completely different’.

Before going on to admit that it ‘bothered’ her that most of the attention surrounding her onscreen performance was focused on her nude scenes. 

‘I’m very proud of my work in Euphoria. I thought it was a great performance. But no one walks about it because I got naked, I do The White Lotus and all of a sudden critics are paying attention. 

‘People are loving me. They’re going: “Oh my God, what’s she doing next?” I was like: “Did you not see that in Euphoria? Did you not see that in The Handmaid’s Tale?”‘.

Sydney later told Variety in 2024 that she often felt ‘dehumanised’ by the constant online scrutiny over her body, saying: ‘I see it, and I just can’t allow myself to have a reaction. I don’t know how to explain it – I’m still trying to figure it out myself,’

‘People feel connected and free to be able to speak about me in whatever way they want, because they believe that I’ve signed my life away. That I’m not on a human level anymore, because I’m an actor. That these characters are for everybody else, but then me as Sydney is not for me anymore. 

‘It’s this weird relationship that people have with me that I have no control or say over.’ 

Since shooting to fame on the HBO series when it first aired in 2019, the actress has frequently faced typecasting as the ‘sexualised,’ ‘sensual,’ or ’emotionally complicated’ girl.

Most recently, she played Millie Calloway in the 2025 film adaptation of The Housemaid.

Her character is a young woman with a criminal record who takes a job as a live-in housemaid for a wealthy family. She ends up having an affair with the husband, who turns out not to be all that innocent. 

There were numerous nude scenes for her character in the movie as well as a steamy hotel sex scene with hunky co-star Brandon Sklenar.

Meanwhile In 2021’s erotic thriller The Voyeurs, Sydney played the role of Pippa, who moves into a Montreal apartment with boyfriend Thomas (Justice Smith). 

The young couple become obsessed with watching their neighbours across the street, with the actress going topless for one saucy scene. 

Sydney was once again topless for 2023 romantic comedy Anyone But You, which she starred in alongside Glen Powell, 37.

While the story was based on Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, this version saw the couple strip off for a sexy shower scene.

It comes after Euphoria fans tore apart the show’s long-awaited third season, criticising the ‘disgusting’ scenes and the decision for some cast members to return. 

Creator Sam Levinson had a rumoured $200million budget for the latest series, which saw the East Highland High School students return after a five-year break and charted their new lives as adults. 

But the gamble doesn’t seem to have paid off, with the new series scoring a dismal 42 per cent ‘rotten’ rating on reviews aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, while one viewer branded the revival an ‘expensive mistake you didn’t have to make’.

Many have also questioned the decision for Jacob Elordi and Sydney to return – with viewers claiming the Oscar-nominated Australian actor doesn’t seem committed to his role and saying it looks like he is ‘physically forcing himself through every take’. 

Meanwhile, Sydney was accused of putting herself through a ‘humiliation ritual’, as degrading scenes show her character filming OnlyFans content dressed as a dog and a baby. 

Viewers also took to X to warn others not to watch the show while eating, revealing they’d been left feeling sick at graphic scenes showing characters throwing up and suffering with bouts of diarrhoea. 

Particularly nauseating scenes included Zendaya and Chloe Cherry – who play Rue and Faye – struggling to choke down lube-covered balloons of fentanyl in order to smuggle it over the Mexico-US border. 

The characters were seen struggling for air and vomiting while forcing down the drugs – but the scenes for extracting the fentanyl were even more gruesome. 

In order to obtain the drugs, the pair were forced to defecate in a strainer – which was later washed off and used to serve spaghetti. 

While waiting for her turn to use the toilet, Faye struggled with a bout of explosive diarrhoea, with a dog eating the excrement.