Sharon Stone says Sydney Sweeney should ‘take responsibility’ for provocative sports betting ad

Daysia TolentinoThu, September 24, 2026 at 5:19 PM UTC

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Sharon Stone; Sydney SweeneyCredit: Victor Boyko/Getty; Monica Schipper/GettyKey Points -

Sharon Stone said that Sydney Sweeney should “take responsibility” after offending female athletes with her recent Novig ad.

Sweeney stripped down and was nearly nude in the sports betting ad, which promoted trading on “just sports.”

Sweeney received backlash, as critics believe she was contributing to the oversexualization of women in sports.

Sharon Stone urged her Euphoria costar Sydney Sweeney to “take responsibility” for her controversial Novig ad.

Sweeney recently stripped down for a nearly-nude commercial promoting the sports betting app. Using various sports equipment — footballs, goalie pads, shoulder pads, and more — to cover her most intimate parts, she stresses that Novig users trade “just sports.”

Predictably, the White Lotus alum received backlash for the move. Numerous female athletes, including sprinter Amy Hunt and gymnast Gracie Kramer, slammed the ad for sexualizing women in sports.

Now, Stone is giving her two cents on the issue. While she didn’t feel it her place to lecture her younger costar, the Basic Instinctactress hoped that the moment could be transformed into an opportunity to celebrate female athletes.

“I think that it’s up to her to take responsibility for her actions, not up to me to judge her for her actions,” Stone told Entertainment Weekly’s sister publication, PEOPLE, on Wednesday, during Variety’s 2026 Power of Women: Los Angeles event. “It is up to me to be a cheerleader for the women who have made it through and become champions in women’s sports.”

Although she didn’t address the specifics of Sweeney’s ad, Stone emphasized that companies shouldn’t objectify women to appeal to men.

“We can’t denigrate women’s sports to get men’s attention so they can gamble,” she said.

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Sharon Stone attends ‘Variety’s’ 2025 Power of Women at The Beverly Hills Hotel on Oct. 29, 2025Credit: Maya Dehlin Spach/Getty

Entertainment Weekly reached out to representatives for Sweeney for comment.

And this isn’t the first time that Stone has criticized Sweeney, previously shading the 29-year-old’s lingerie line, Syrn.

“In Euphoria, I tried to get Sydney Sweeney’s character to stop being a cam girl and to come and work for me on the series I was producing called L.A. Nights,” Stone, 68, told Variety in an interview published on Sept. 17. “And she agreed to stop being a cam girl — which she didn’t do. As you can see from Sydney’s new lingerie line, it didn’t take.”

Beyond the Novig ad, Sweeney is no stranger to controversy. In fact, she has gotten herself in hot water quite a few times in recent years. From stringing her Syrn bras across the Hollywood sign to her divisive American Eagle ad, she is used to the drama.

Sydney Sweeney in her ad for NovigCredit: Novig

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The Housemaid star previously shared that she doesn’t feel the need to respond to backlash publicly. Instead, she opts to vent to her close friends and lets the rest of the noise fade away.

“I know who I am,” Sweeney told GQ last November. “I know what I value. I know that I’m a kind person. I know that I love a lot, and I know that I’m just excited to see what happens next. And so I don’t really let other people define who I am.”

on Entertainment Weekly

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”