Kelly Stafford, who has spent years raising four daughters amid the overlapping worlds of professional sports, fame and social media, used the latest Sydney Sweeney controversy as a parenting lesson. The wife of Los Angeles Rams quarterback and reigning NFL MVP Matthew Stafford shared her perspective this week as debate continued over Sweeney’s revealing campaign for sports prediction and trading app Novig, which shows the “Euphoria” actress nude with sports equipment strategically covering her body.
On Monday, Stafford, 37, made her position clear by reposting a video from influencer Daniel Hong to her Instagram Story. Alongside the clip, she wrote an emphatic endorsement: “THIS THIS THIS THIS.”
Hong, who is raising two daughters, used an image from Sweeney’s ad campaign to discuss what he sees as an important message for young girls: being noticed is not the same as having worth.
“Appearance can get you attention: likes, comments, followers, money, opportunities,” Hong said. “All of that is very real. What I want them to understand is that attention and value are not the same thing.”
The sentiment clearly struck a chord with Stafford, who shares four daughters with the Rams star. She has often spoken openly about motherhood and family life on social media and on her “The Morning After” podcast, which is currently on hiatus.
Novig’s Sydney Sweeney campaign has also fueled a wider conversation about the sexualization of women in sports, drawing criticism from several well-known female athletes.
Australian Olympic swimming gold medalist Ariarne Titmus described the imagery as “a kick in the face to every woman who has dedicated her life to perfecting her craft,” while questioning why women’s bodies are still so often used as a way to market sports-related content.
Paralympian Beatriz Hatz delivered an even more pointed response, saying women “deserve to compete at the peak of our ability and be seen as athletes.”
Former UCLA gymnast Gracie Kramer also entered the discussion, posting video of herself competing and writing, “Idk what Sydney Sweeney was doing, but this is what a woman in sports looks like.”
Sweeney did not directly respond to the backlash. However, she appeared to address the larger debate by posting photos of athletes who had previously posed nude for ESPN The Magazine’s well-known Body Issue.
The debate is ultimately larger than one advertisement. For Stafford, it appears to have hit especially close to home.
With four daughters growing up in a world where attention can be converted into currency with a swipe of a screen, Hong’s message was the one she chose to amplify: popularity can have a price tag, but it shouldn’t determine a girl’s value.