Sydney Sweeneyin his usual fashion, leaves the “Euphoria” noise in the dust as the numbers rise.
The actress’ return to the screen as Cassie Howard in the hit HBO series was met with sky-high ratings despite huge backlash against her character’s career path in the show’s third season.
Sydney Sweeney’s performance in the second season of the critically acclaimed series earned her a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 2022.
Sydney Sweeney’s Euphoria Ratings Soar Despite Backlash
The actress deserves bragging rights as a strong contender for one of Hollywood’s top talents following the impressive ratings following the second episode of the HBO series. The second episode reached 5 million viewers on HBO and HBO Max in its first three days, matching the audience numbers recorded for the first episode. Talk about consistency!
According to Warner Bros. Discovery, the second episode in the United States alone, performed almost 35% better than the second episode of the previous season. The second episode of season 2 peaked at 6.4 million viewers in three days and made stars like Sweeney, Jacob Elordi, Alexa Damie, Maude Apatow, Hunter Schafer and Zendaya bigger household names.
The current season’s premiere episode surged from 8.5 million viewers in the first three days to more than 12.3 million viewers in the United States. Variety reported that the worldwide total also surpassed 20 million viewers, representing a 68% jump from the worldwide total recorded for the three-day Season 2 premiere.
The model’s co-star slammed her character for taking a shocking turn in her career
Sweeney’s on-screen character, Cassie, got off to a very dramatic start in the show’s third season, and her co-star, Chloe Cherry, who plays Faye Valentine, had some things to say about Cassie’s character development. As shared by The Blast, Cherry commented on Cassie becoming an OnlyFans content creator on the show, noting that it seemed unbelievable that someone from a privileged background like Cassie would take this path.
Cassie was portrayed in the series as someone from a relatively stable suburban background, with reasonable economic and social privilege compared to other characters in the series. Sweeney’s character particularly pushed the limits of the show’s explicit scenes even further this season.
Cherry explained that the economy is horrible and it has pushed people into the adult content creation industry in real life. Even though she had some experience in the adult film industry before moving into mainstream cinema, Cherry still thinks Cassie’s privileged background stands in stark contrast to the path she chose on the show.
Sydney Sweeney’s Suggestive Scenes in ‘Euphoria’ Made Megyn Kelly Furious
The female characters in the show’s third season have been running the trend table all week due to their highly sexualized content, particularly a scene where Cassie unleashed childish role play. The scene became one of the most talked about of the season, sparking comments from media personality Kelly.
Kelly described the scene as the character and the show’s creators giving childhood unnecessary nuance, stating, “She’s dressed like a baby… she’s sucking on a binkie… and her legs are completely spread. It’s a sexualized childhood.” Last year, the actress made headlines for posing with guests at her mother’s birthday party while wearing themed hats and shirts tied to a certain political party.
She broke her silence over the backlash, insisting she had no control over what people would wear to the party and how netizens would treat it. She urged netizens to stop attaching unnecessary political connotations to such an important ceremony, insisting that their assumptions do not directly translate to the intent of the event’s participants.
The 28-year-old raved about the extent of her character’s desperation on the show
The media personality was more than happy to show what she was made of on the show’s third season ahead of its release. As The Blast shared, she described her character as a crazy guy who would go to the ends of the earth to be famous this season, all while making questionable decisions and interesting choices.
Sweeney has previously addressed the issue of appearing in steamy scenes on the show, emphasizing that she has no problem playing such roles because it’s also a way for her to condemn the stigma of actresses doing nude scenes. “Euphoria” was also poorly reviewed by critics like the New York Post, who claimed that the screenplay was poorly written, sacrificing depth in favor of mundane and absurd scenes.
It also appeared as the lowest-rated season of the series on Rotten Tomatoes, at 40%, about half the rating of seasons one and two. Another IndieWire reviewer, Ben Travers, said that “Euphoria” in its final season aged instead of growing because the characters refused to change, nor were they motivated to inspire their viewers to change as well.
Sydney Sweeney didn’t win for “The Devil Wears Prada 2”
The media personality was reportedly part of the film which hits theaters on May 1, 2026, alongside Emily Blunt in her Dior office as Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway and Stanley Tucci arrive to ask for her help.
Unfortunately, Sweeney was unable to appear as herself in the three-minute scene because it was edited out. An insider claimed that the show’s producers felt her cameo didn’t work structurally with the rest of the series, leading to a creative decision to leave her out of the series.
Sam Levinson explained the reason for Cassie’s character’s trajectory, explaining that the idea was to find another layer of absurdity that the show could relate to so that viewers weren’t too much in a fantasy world.
Will the backlash subside soon for Sydney Sweeney and ‘Euphoria’?
