During the press tour for Anyone But You, it came up that Sydney Sweeney had once worked as a tour guide for Universal Studios when she was a teenager. First in a profile for Women’s Health, then on an episode of Hot Ones, and next on The Kelly Clarkson Show. Then, former Universal Studios tour guides began posting on TikTok, saying that there was no way this was true, that the training alone would be too much for a teenager to handle. Now, we have a definitive answer — but let’s start at the beginning.
In her Women’s Health profile, writer Lindsay Geller wrote that Sweeney “babysat, cleaned restaurant bathrooms, and led tours at Universal Studios” in order to help her family pay the bills while she was pursuing her dreams of becoming an actor. Then, on Hot Ones, host Sean Evans asked her about her tenure as a tour guide and what her favorite fun fact was to give on the tour. Instead of specifics about being a guide, Sweeney talked about how she had to pay all of her own bills during her time as a struggling actor. She noted that she was at Universal “for a little bit” before booking a role on the show Sharp Objects.
This interview really riled up the current and former Universal Studios tour guides. Several of them took to TikTok to say that Sweeney was outright lying about her résumé. Taylor Hancock, who has worked for the Universal Studios tour department for “many years,” posted the most viral of these videos, with over 1.5 million views.
“No hate to her; I don’t know why she’s choosing to fib about this,” he said in the video. “But seeing Sydney Sweeney dance around this and never give a straight answer is kinda crazy considering she’s the one that volunteered that information, that verifiably false information.”
Hancock went on to say that getting a job as a Universal tour guide is “notoriously difficult” and is not “just a summer job that any teenager can get.” According to Hancock, there are “multiple rounds of auditions just to join a class to study the information to possibly get the job.”
So now it’s time for the moment of truth. Is Syndey Sweeney lying? Technically, no. The Hollywood Reporter investigated the situation and found that the Euphoria star did work at Universal Studios, but only for a month and some change. Per its reporting, Sweeney was hired on June 12, 2016, and left on July 18, 2016, after getting an acting job. The real fib here seems to be which role she left Universal for. Sharp Objects shot during the summer of 2017, so it doesn’t seem like that would be the role that yanked her away from the Universal back lot.
Now that this is all cleared up, there’s only one thing left to do. Sydney Sweeney needs to get to Universal and take a photo with the shark from Jaws. Any publicist worth their salt knows that’s how this situation gets put to bed.