Sydney Sweeney told PEOPLE she was caught off guard by the backlash surrounding American Eagle’s denim campaign last summer, in which she starred.

Sydney Sweeney is addressing her viral American Eagle jeans ad again, affirming that she’s “against hate and divisiveness” and does not “support the views some people chose to connect to the campaign....

Despite the controversy, American Eagle stood by the campaign, writing in August that it “always was about the jeans. Her jeans. Her story.”