Let's Take a Look at the Wild Rumor That Actor Sydney Sweeney Was in the Military

The rumor mill is churning, and, once again, actor Sydney Sweeney is caught in its wake. In July 2025, the Euphoria star was accused of peddling eugenics after she partnered with America Eagle for an ad campaign that promoted good jeans. It also promoted good puns, as one video showed the word genes crossed out and replaced with the word jeans.

Following criticism of the campaign, BuzzFeed News confirmed that Sydney was a registered Republican as of June 2024. This occurred nearly two years after Donald Trump announced he was going to run a third time. Extremely online people alleged that the actor's political party affiliation was proof that the America Eagle ad was a racist dog whistle for eugenics. The idea that Sydney Sweeney was also in the military quickly circulated online. Is there any truth to this? Here's what we know.

Sydney Sweeney has not served in the military. Rumors of actor Sydney Sweeney's military involvement likely started when the Taran Tactical X account shared a video of her doing splits. In shooting, a split refers to the "time duration between shots on the same target," per Vortex Optics. In the video, she completes a split in just under 10 seconds as people cheer her on. A snippet of the actor's American Eagle ad campaign was spliced into the video.

One woman is heard saying, "Oh my God girl, that was really good," as another asks if this was Syndey's first time. Evidently it was. The person recording the video tells the actor that for her first day, this was "pretty good." She responds with a thank you, then autographs a wall filled with other signatures.

The Taran Tactical X account has shared other videos of actors doing splits at their shooting range. Well, we say "actors," but one of the videos is of Britney Spears's ex-husband, Sam Ashgari. There is also a video of Michael B. Jordan at the shooting range, though we don't see him doing splits. It seems to suggest he was there training for his role in the Sinners movie, which required the actor to shoot at least three different kinds of guns from the 1930s.

Distractify spoke with someone from Taran Tactical who said they train a lot of actors for projects, including Keanu Reeves for the John Wick films. They also said this is a private shooting range that actors often come to when they want to have a good time without worrying about prying eyes. Apart from the shooting range, they are also gunsmiths who primarily sell weapons to collectors, law enforcement, and filmmakers.

In 2023 Sydney starred in the biopic Reality, which was about U.S. Air Force veteran and former NSA translator Reality Winner. The former Air Force linguist was arrested in 2017 and charged with "sending a classified report about election interference to reporters at The Intercept," per The New York Times.

Winner plead guilty in 2018 and was sentenced to 63 months in a federal prison. She was released to a halfway house in June 2021 due to good behavior. According to Elle, as of December 2022 Winner was still on probation and living in Texas. While prepping for the movie, Syndey spoke with Winner via Zoom in order to help create her character.