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A former Hollywood producer who worked on films such as Father of the Bridge recently made some headlines with her disparaging comments about actress Sydney Sweeney.
Now an adjunct professor at the University of Southern California, Carol Baum said she needed to have Sweeney’s popularity “explained” to her because she’s “not pretty and can’t act.”
“There’s an actress who everybody loves now: Sydney Sweeney. I don’t get Sydney Sweeney. I was watching on the plane Sydney Sweeney’s movie [‘Anyone but You’] because I wanted to watch it. I wanted to know who she is and why everybody’s talking about her,” she said in a conversation with film critic Janet Maslin of the New York Times, according to Daily Mail.
“I said to my class, ‘Explain this girl to me. She’s not pretty, she can’t act. Why is she so hot?’ Nobody had an answer.”
Sweeney responded to Baum via a representative in a statement to Variety:
“How sad that a woman in the position to share her expertise and experience chooses instead to attack another woman. If that’s what she’s learned in her decades in the industry and feels is appropriate to teach to her students, that’s shameful. To unjustly disparage a fellow female producer speaks volumes about Ms. Baum’s character.”
While Baum did not provide them with a statement, TMZ spoke to sources who said that she was “already expressing regret over the whole thing” and “wishes she never would’ve made her original comments.”
Baum’s analysis of Sweeney, while popular, is inaccurate, as her performance in her recent horror film Immaculate proves she’s a more complex actor than people realized. And as for her looks, her recent rom-com Anyone But You made over $200 million at the box office largely due to her growing status as a modern-day sex symbol.