Thousands of Instagram users have smashed the “unfollow” button on Sydney Sweeney’s profile after the actress was featured in and promoted a controversial sports-betting app in which she appears nude with sports equipment obscuring parts of her anatomy.
\n\nLast Wednesday, Sweeney shared the ad promoting sports-prediction market app Novig on Instagram — where it has racked up 1.1 million likes so far. In the 60-second ad, the “Euphoria” star appears fully or partially nude, posing with a variety of sports equipment like footballs, basketballs, a soccer ball and a hockey net.
\n\nSince hitting the internet, the ad has triggered a negative reaction among those objecting to its sexualization of women in sports. Several women Olympic athletes have weighed in on the Sweeney ad, including Ariarne Titmus, a four-time Olympic gold medal swimmer from Australia, who wrote in a post: “I can’t describe how infuriated I feel when I watch this. … How do we live in a world where monetising a woman’s body and sexualising women’s sport is still a thing?”
\n\nIn the three days after the ad dropped, Sweeney’s Instagram followers ticked up by 50,000. But on Sunday, she lost 136,848 — and on Monday, another 68,000 have unfollowed…
Original source: https://variety.com/