Sydney Sweeney clarifies rumours she never actually worked at Universal Studios

Rumours that she never worked at Universal Studios began in November 2023

Sydney Sweeney has clarified reports about whether she worked as a tour guide at Universal Studios after it was speculated that she’d never worked at the theme park.

The actress first opened up about the job during a Women’s Health interview in November 2023, in which she detailed the beginning of her career. In the interview, the Anyone But You actress discussed watching her parents go bankrupt and detailed the various jobs she took in order to help her family with the bills, one of them being a tour guide at Universal Studios.

“I watched my parents lose a lot. We filed for bankruptcy, and they lost their house back home on the lake. We couldn’t afford life in LA,” Sweeney said in the interview.

In future interviews, Sweeney was asked about her time at Universal but never directly addressed it. For example, when she was asked about her theme park job on The Kelly Clarkson Show, she said, “I was a huge theme park person, my family and friends would go to Universal all the time.”

Then, on her episode of Hot Ones, she added she “memorised” the studio tour and was able to “recite their entire script”. When the host asked her what her favourite tour guide memory was, she slipped into telling the story of being a struggling actor and budgeting instead, and did not answer the question directly.

“I was there for a bit, and then actually booked Sharp Objects,” Sweeney told the host.

Many people went on to comment on that video, which resurfaced on TikTok, that they were Universal tour guides themselves and could confirm that Sweeney had never actually worked there.

“Tour guide here! She was never a tour guide, we fact checked. But thanks for the shout out Sydney,” one comment read at the time. Another commenter allegedly confirmed, writing: “Hi, another tour guide here! Can confirm, after a very deep dive, that she was never a guide.”

Another Universal tour guide named Taylor Hancock stitched the Hot Ones clip, and made the claim that Sweeney was lying. “I have worked for the Universal Studios tour department for many years,” he said. “I don’t know why she’s choosing to kind of fib about this, but Sydney Sweeney has never been a Universal tour guide.”

Adding that Sydney’s claim is “verifiably false,” Hancock claimed it is difficult to get a tour guide job as “it’s not just a summer job that any teenager can get,” before alleging it was “an odd thing to lie about”.

However, after weeks of people questioning why the Euphoria actress would lie about working at the theme park, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed that Sweeney was actually telling the truth.

The outlet wrote that the actress was hired by Universal Studios Hollywood on 12 June 2016 and she went on to work both an orientation shift and a training shift, only to exit the job on 18 July 2016.

Because of the short time span when she worked at the theme park, it isn’t clear if she worked there long enough to physically conduct a tour, and would also explain why none of the other tour guides knew her.

The Independent has contacted a representative for Sweeney and Universal Studios for comment.