The Sad Truth About Sydney Sweeney's Drive For Success In Hollywood

Sydney Sweeney's tragic, real-life story often gets eclipsed by her many controversies. While appearing on "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon," in 2022, the "Euphoria" breakout star shared that when she was 11 years old, she created a PowerPoint Presentation to convince her parents to move from Spokane, Washington to Los Angeles, so that she could make her dreams of becoming an actor a reality. While it was the first step in Sweeney's stunning transformation into a Hollywood star, the big move also brought its own set of challenges.

On The Hollywood Reporter's "Awards Chatter" podcast, in December 205, "The White Lotus" star confirmed that her family's financial situation worsened significantly when they relocated because their cost of living went through the roof. Although Sweeney was only a child at the time, she admitted to feeling tremendous pressure to work as hard as possible, recalling, "I was just doing anything that I could to have a resume built, gain connections, and make sure that my parents didn't give up on me." Unfortunately, by the time the actor turned 16, her father was out of a job, and they had no recourse but to file for bankruptcy. 

While reflecting back on those tough early days, the "Eden" star acknowledged, "I felt like a lot of it was my fault because I had brought them to the city [and] uplifted their entire lives, and I blamed myself for a long time." To better understand how Sweeney's major money problems and their resulting pressures could have negatively impacted her in her younger years, we chatted with Stephanie Wijkstrom, MS, LPC, NBCC, who confirmed, "Parents need to be the break on very ambitious child." 

During Stephanie Wijkstrom's exclusive chat with The List, she professed that Sydney Sweeney's familial struggles weren't all that different from those of an ordinary family trying to support an ambitious child. According to the expert, in such situations, it was vital that parents encourage their children to have a space in their lives where they were free of the pressures of their goals and could enjoy simply being regular children. As Wijkstrom warned, "Pushing a child to be consumed with achieving a goal could add a lot of additional pressure and cause them to feel unwanted stresses and emotions." 

Ambitious children like the future "Immaculate" star could also benefit from knowing that their self-worth isn't tied to success in their career, and they were worthy of love as individuals. In Sweeney's case, though, her parents notably did try to put her heartbreaking doubts to rest. While discussing her family's struggles in a February 2022 interview with Cosmopolitan, the actor disclosed, "[My parents] always say, 'It wasn't your fault.' It was." Sadly, when her parents first parted ways, her brother blamed her for their split.

Sweeney confessed to Who What Wear, in March 2024, that she believed if she had got her big break in Hollywood earlier, her family life would have been far happier overall. The "Christy" star's parents tried to take the heat off her, but she felt it anyway and it fueled her desire to make it in the brutal industry. Unfortunately, once her dreams came true, Sweeney was embroiled in numerous scandals that led to her downfall from fame.