For the foreseeable future, Megyn Kelly is likely to stock her denim wardrobe at American Eagle, rather than Levi’s. In light of the controversy surrounding Sydney Sweeney’s American Eagle campaign, the conservative commentator has thrown her support behind the Euphoria and White Lotus actress while taking aim at Beyoncé.
On August 5, Kelly shared a photo on X showing the 35-time Grammy winner in a Levi’s ensemble—Beyoncé’s endorsement partner since last year—and quipped, “This couldn’t be more different from the Sydney Sweeney spot.”
“Clearly, there’s nothing authentic about Beyoncé,” Kelly continued. “Every aspect—her image, acclaim, fortune, even her physique—feels contrived, artificial, and overly engineered.”
When critics accused her of bullying Beyoncé, Kelly retorted, “It’s inconceivable for me to ‘bully’ Beyoncé when she’s one of the richest, most influential figures on the planet.”
Billboard has reached out to Beyoncé’s representatives for comment.
Kelly’s defense of Sweeney arrives as a wave of conservative figures—including President Donald Trump, who posted on Truth Social, “Go get ’em Sydney!”—rallies behind the American Eagle campaign. In the ads, Sweeney boasts about her “great genes,” a pun on denim that some have decried as echoing racist propaganda. American Eagle insists the campaign was simply a celebration of their jeans.
This isn’t Kelly’s first public clash with Beyoncé. In June, she accused the pop icon of playing the victim after Beyoncé integrated clips of Kelly’s earlier critique into visuals promoting the Cowboy Carter Tour.
“Here’s another one of the world’s most privileged icons,” Kelly said on The Megyn Kelly Show. “Yet she still seeks out a reason to portray herself as aggrieved because big bad Megyn Kelly made a mild comment about her country music venture.”
