Sydney Sweeney has become a fascinating topic of discussion, stirring up both admiration and controversy.

It’s not due to her involvement in a campaign with the catchy line ‘Sydney Sweeney’s got great jeans,’ which she seemingly overlooked might raise eyebrows.

Nor is it because of her political affiliation as a registered Republican or her popularity among Donald Trump supporters. It’s not even her rumored romance with Scooter Braun, the divisive music manager known for his clashes with both Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber.

What truly makes Sydney Sweeney stand out is her bold confidence in embracing her own body without apology.

This was evident when she graced the red carpet at the Los Angeles premiere of her latest film, The Housemaid. Clad in a white halter-neck dress adorned with feathery accents, she drew comparisons to Marilyn Monroe’s iconic look from The Seven Year Itch.

Yet, all eyes were on Sweeney, and not just for her fashion choices. The photographers captured every angle, while Elon Musk couldn’t resist sharing a meme that highlighted her figure on X.

Sweeney will, of course, know the effect her cleavage has on everybody – one of the great joys of having larger breasts is that they tend to show up juvenile men like Musk for who they really are (see also: Mark Zuckerberg, goggle-eyed when Lauren Sanchez wore a vaguely low-cut top to Trump’s inauguration at the beginning of the year).

We bigger-busted women know that to show even a hint of embonpoint will lead to us being leered at by men and sneered at by (some) women. Which is why I have to applaud the actress for not giving a diamanté-decorated nipple tassel what anybody thinks of her.

Sydney Sweeney, 28, in a white, halter-necked dress at the Los Angeles premiere of her new film The Housemaid

It’s not just the confidence that I find so refreshing – it’s also the structural skills required to pull it off. When I was in my 20s, the only way I’d dare to wear a halter-neck was in the form of a bikini on holiday, when the straps would be tied so tightly around my neck that they would effectively cut off all circulation to my spine and shoulders. Then a nipple would inevitably escape out of the meagre offering of material anyway.

So kudos to the actress for keeping it all together in the most public of places.

And this, I think, is why the most controversial thing about Sydney Sweeney is also the best thing about Sydney Sweeney.

Because, in an Ozempic-obsessed world, where women are taking up less and less space – and collarbones are becoming more and more pronounced – the actress is showing a different type of front, one that steadfastly resists the call to hide or disappear.

It’s a call that those of us with larger breasts know well: put them away, and if you can’t put them away, for goodness sake get rid of them.

Indeed, Sweeney revealed in an interview with Glamour magazine last year that as an insecure teenager, she considered getting a breast reduction.

‘When I was in high school, I used to feel uncomfortable about how big my boobs were,’ she said. ‘I used to say that, when I turned 18, I was going to get a boob job to make them smaller. My mom told me, “Don’t do it. You’ll regret it in college.” And I’m so glad I didn’t. I like them. They’re my best friends.’

Sweeney’s cheery acceptance of her breasts is so shocking to some that in a Vanity Fair ‘lie detector’ interview this week, she was once again asked if they were real – this time by her The Housemaid co-star Amanda Seyfried.

When Sweeney announced that they were, and the test administrator confirmed her response was truthful, Seyfried responded by asking if she could touch them.

What is it about big breasts that turns other humans – women included – into blithering idiots? I really sympathise with Sweeney, having spent a large portion of my life being told off for my boobs (it’s like being chastised for your ears, or your knees, or your toenails).

At sixth form I was punished by a teacher for wearing a ‘provocative’ top – a bog-standard t-shirt – and informed that in future I would be better off in a polo-neck. In my 20s, I lost count of the number of times my boobs were ‘honked’ (that’s a jolly word for ‘assaulted’) by blokes in pubs and at parties.

And throughout my life, I’ve been asked the question ‘why don’t you get a breast reduction?’ with much the same nonchalance as ‘would you like a cup of tea?’

I’ll tell you why I won’t be getting a breast reduction: because it’s a £10,000 operation that takes months to recover from, and I’m not going to chop off perfectly healthy bits of my body just to make everyone else comfortable.

As I’ve got older, this insistence on asking me to put my breasts away has only made me more likely to get them out. So I run marathons in my bra, and wear the low-cut neckline, because, much like Sweeney, I am determined to prove to people that my boobs aren’t the problem: rather, it’s living in a world that polices women’s bodies, and likes to claim ownership of them.

And in the end, I wonder if this is why so many people really seem so bothered by Sydney Sweeney. Not because of her voting record, her boyfriend, or the fact that Donald Trump is quite fond of her, but because she refuses to be miserable about her body, to maim it and change it to suit the whims of other people.

Bryony Gordon out for a jog on the cover of the latest edition of the magazine Women’s Running

I’m a cover girl at last

If you’d told me a decade ago that I would one day be on the cover of Women’s Running magazine, I would have laughed in your face (as long as it didn’t require moving from the sofa).

But here I am, ending 2025 as a cover girl (for the magazine’s latest issue, out now) with well over 1,000 km of running clocked up this year, including a marathon and five half marathons. I’m proof you are never too middle-aged or curvy to pick up a new way of life. 

Why Trump IS just like an alcoholic

White House Chief of Staff Susan Wiles has told Vanity Fair that Donald Trump has the personality of an alcoholic. (When that’s coming from someone supposedly on your side, you’ve got to worry).

Many people have pointed out that Trump is teetotal, but Wiles is right – being an alcoholic has very little to do with how much you drink.

In fact, most of us who go into recovery discover we were boozing to get rid of some of our key characteristics: we tend to be obsessive, self-centred, full of fear, and a little bit nuts. Sound like anyone you know?

US President Donald Trump has the personality of an alcoholic… says White House Chief of Staff Susan Wiles

We’re not too posh to push! 

Please can we stop describing women who have c-sections as being ‘too posh too push’?

And while we’re at it, can we stop pitying mums who end up having emergency c-sections, instead of so-called ‘natural births’, which have been overtaken by the surgical procedure for the first time?

When I was in labour and the baby became distressed, the midwife apologised that we were going to end up in surgery.

But 12 and a half years on, I feel nothing but positivity towards that emergency C-section, because it saved my daughter’s life. I wasn’t ‘too posh to push’… just too sane to turn down standard medical intervention.