Here's how Audie Cornish teed up her airing of Sydney Sweeney's commercial for Novig:
"Okay, so the ad is for a prediction market app and the reason why everyone is so mad is, well, you’ll see."
So, seeing the ad is enough to understand why "everyone is so mad?" Speak for yourself, Audie.
On Wednesday’s CNN This Morning, host Cornish devoted a long segment to Sydney Sweeney’s nearly nude advertisements for Novig, a prediction-market app. Sweeney appears in the spot as an athlete in various sports, barely clothed but with gear er, strategically placed.
Cornish had begun the segment by playing three social-media clips — two TikTok, one Instagram — all women, all outraged. The ad was a “setback.” It was “disrespectful to every female athlete in the world.” It was “disgusting.”
Surprise! No woman shrugged at the ad, let alone men — or women — who liked it! If cherry growers need pickers, CNN’s social unit is available.
Lisa Respers France, CNN’s senior entertainment reporter, arrived to explain the “subtlety.” Female athletes, she said, are “sexualized and hypersexualized” every time they “step out on the court.” Sweeney had already pointed to ESPN’s Body Issue. France’s distinction: “Those were athletes. She is not an athlete. She is a naked actress.”
A distinction without a difference. Venus Williams posed for that Body Issue in 2014. Serena was the nude cover that launched it in 2009. They were athletes. For their own purposes, they also chose to take their clothes off for a magazine. It wasn't a commercial. But it definitely used nudity for sales and clicks.
Beach volleyball no longer requires the bikini, but most of the women still wear it. In 2021 a World Tour stop in Doha tried to force players to wear shirts and long pants. German players said they would skip the tournament. Western coverage treated that as their call — their work clothes.
Yet five years later, a woman choosing a nearly nonexistent outfit in an ad is an insult to every female athlete.
CNN's Audie Cornish (and entertainment reporter Lisa Respers France) stoke outrage on behalf of "female athletes infuriated" over Sydney Sweeney's "nearly nude" ads for the Novig app. "She's feeding the beast! She's giving people what they want!" pic.twitter.com/7w0MsZKG4M
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) September 18, 2026
Cornish repeatedly mocked Sweeney as a supposedly failed actress. After noting some of her commercial endeavors, Cornish acidly added, "I’m not talking about her at the Emmys, though." She later wondered whether Sweeney was still an actress at all. Cornish's catty conclusion:
"She did not get accolades nor attention for [her acting.] And so you see a person who has simply decided to take the reins and say, if it’s my body you want, it is my body you will get."
Let's be real about why Cornish and the liberal media at large are going after Sweeney. It's precisely because Sweeney is not a liberal. Sydney has largely avoided politics, but nonetheless has been branded conservative-adjacent for the sin of having registered as a Republican a few years ago.
If a liberal actress had appeared in the identical commercial, the liberal media would be extolling her empowerment. You go, girl!
Whatever happened to "my body, my choice"? On Wednesday, the same choice was a supposed setback for women who train — and a punch line about an actress who, in Cornish’s telling, couldn’t get the accolades, so took off her clothes.
Here's the transcript.
CNN This Morning
9/16/26
6:23 am EDT
AUDIE CORNISH: So this morning, Sydney Sweeney facing backlash again for another controversial ad.
TIKTOKER 1: It has just set back every single woman who is fighting for respect in the sports industry.
INSTAGRAMER: That Sydney Sweeney ad is so disrespectful to every female athlete in the world, every woman who works in the sports industry in the world, everyone who’s like an advocate of women’s sport.
TIKTOKER 2: Something needed to be said because women who I know, women who I’ve seen have worked so hard their entire lives to get to where they’re at in sports and to see it being made fun of in a way is just disgusting.
CORNISH: Okay, so the ad is for a prediction market app and the reason why everyone is so mad is, well, you’ll see.
SYDNEY SWEENEY: Think you know sports? Prove it. Novig is just sports. So they wanted to show just sports. You can trade this sport and this sport.
CORNISH: So here is the naked truth behind Sydney’s ad. She’s saying “just sports” for a reason. The app Novig is suing five states so they won’t be shut down for illegal sports gambling ring. They claim they are different from Kalshi and Polymarket since their entire marketplace is dedicated to, quote unquote, just sports.
So is the uproar exactly what they wanted to distract from what’s going on behind the scenes? Joining me now, Lisa Respers France, CNN senior entertainment reporter. Thank you for being here.
LISA RESPERS FRANCE: Thank you for having me.
CORNISH: I feel like maybe Sydney Sweeney is our distractor-in-chief.
RESPERS FRANCE: I think quite possibly, but she’s also an extremely smart businesswoman. According to the CEO of Novig, Jacob Fortinsky, he says that she actually has an equity stake in the company, and she helped them come up with this ad, this whole “just sports” thing. Because according to him, she was attracted to the company because they don’t bet on things like politics and pop culture and stuff like that. That it is literally just sports. So, I’m sure they would argue that that is what the ad is supposed to get across.
CORNISH: Yeah, yeah. And I’m sure the state AGs in Wisconsin and New York and all the other people who think that they should be regulated, like sports betting apps, disagree.
To your point, Sydney has multiple companies, a lingerie brand, her film and TV production company. She sold her bathwater, limited edition, needless to say.
RESPERS FRANCE: She is—
CORNISH: I, you know, I’m not talking about her at the Emmys, though. Right, like, originally her title was actress.
RESPERS FRANCE: Right, and her title still is actress, but—
CORNISH: Is it?
RESPERS FRANCE: Well, I think she thinks her title is still actress. And in Hollywood, all publicity is good publicity, right?
CORNISH: Correct. Because the Novig app jumped several spots in the app store right in the middle as they are suing these states.
RESPERS FRANCE: Exactly. And we’re here talking about them. I mean, and who had even heard of them prior to, like, you know, this ad? A lot of people, the general public, did not know about this. You know, you know Kalshi, you know Polymarket. Now you know Novig because we see the scantily—and you can’t even call it scantily clad—the nearly nude Sydney Sweeney.
And so she knows how to be a provocateur and to get eyeballs. But now the test will be, does this really help their company? Because everybody’s talking about Sydney Sweeney, but is everybody talking about Novig?
CORNISH: Right, and it will draw maybe attention from all directions. Law enforcement and otherwise.
RESPERS FRANCE: Exactly.
CORNISH: You know, one of the things I notice is how much female athletes really were upset, really bummed by this. And she [Sweeney] pointed out online, look, ESPN has its naked issue. I don’t see what the problem is. What were they saying, though?
RESPERS FRANCE: Well, the difference with the naked issue is that those were athletes, right? And she is not an athlete. She is a naked actress.
CORNISH: Thank you for that explanation, Lisa. You said it slow, though, so I appreciate that.
RESPERS FRANCE: That’s what it comes down to. But you do have female athletes like Amy Hunt, the British sprinter, who it was so important to her that in a post-race interview with BBC, she was like, this is what female sports is about, like power and, you know, actually putting in the work.
Because, in this time when we’re having so much discussion about women’s sports and the lack of equity and why they should be respected and treated the same as male athletes, a lot of female athletes feel like this ad, which was clearly geared towards men, because a lot of women are saying—
CORNISH: [Facetiously] It was?
RESPERS FRANCE: Yes.
CORNISH: I didn’t notice. I didn’t notice the subtlety.
RESPERS FRANCE: [Laughs] That’s why I’m here. That’s why I’m here to explain that to you.
CORNISH: I love that for us. But yeah, you have all these women saying, every time we step out on the court, we’re sexualized.
RESPERS FRANCE: We’re sexualized and hypersexualized.
CORNISH: Did you know in some of these betting markets at one point people were betting on athletes menstruation?
RESPERS FRANCE: Not at all surprised.
CORNISH: Because they thought it affected performance.
RESPERS FRANCE: And this is exactly why women, especially female athletes, have an issue with this ad. Because they’re saying we are more than just our bodies. And these people who got on the ESPN, that part of that photo shoot being nude, they got there because of their performance. Because they put in the work to rise to the level of an athlete that could be noticed by an ESPN. As opposed to an actress who is known for Euphoria and White Lotus and her movies.
CORNISH: You’re being very generous there, but go on.
RESPERS FRANCE: Yes, even though she played an athlete, she played a boxer in the movie Christy, she is not herself an athlete.
CORNISH: Yeah, can I just say, Sydney Sweeney has tried to be in serious films. She played Reality Winner. As you said, she played a boxer. She did not get accolades nor attention for it. And do you see a person who has simply decided to take the reins and say, if it’s my body you want, it is my body you will get.
RESPERS FRANCE: She’s feeding the beast. She’s giving the people what they want. And in this economy, people are doing what makes them money.
CORNISH: Oh my God. Oh my God.
RESPERS FRANCE: I mean, this is the reality of the situation.
CORNISH: I know, but I don’t want to see pictures of people’s feet. Okay, Lisa Respers France, thank you so much for being here.
