How Euphoria star Sydney Sweeney went from poverty to $9m fortune

The 25-year-old actress has gone from living in a motel room sharing a bed with her mum to having a net worth in the millions.

The 25-year-old actress has gone from living in a motel room sharing a bed with her mum to having a net worth in the millions. Picture: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

She’s the young star everyone’s talking about – and seems to have become an overnight sensation, thanks to Euphoria.

But 25-year-old Sydney Sweeney has been quietly working extremely hard to make her US$6.2 million (A$9.3m) fortune, The Sun reports.

Having grown up in poverty and seen her struggle to become an actor break her family apart, she’s been determined to make as much money as possible.

And that dream has come true.

A bikini clothes line she founded and her successful acting career has propelled her into millionaire status.

Sydney Sweeney grew up in poverty but has turned her situation around. Picture: Andreas Rentz/Getty Images

Her new line with Frankie‘s Bikinis boosted her net worth. Picture: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

In 2018, Sydney landed Netflix show Everything Sucks! as well as the role of child bride Eden Spencer in hit TV show The Handmaid’s Tale.

But it was her role as Cassie Howard in Euphoria that thrust her into the spotlight.

According to Life and Style Magazine, Sydney earned around US$350,000 (A$525,000) for the second series of the hit show.

She went on to star in the first series of The White Lotus and was in Quentin Tarantino film Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.

And Sydney is likely to have earned her biggest pay cheques yet, as she’s set to star in two high-budget blockbusters — Spider-Man spin-off Madame Web and Sony’s Barbarella reboot — both due out next year.

Sydney Sweeney visiting Sydney last month and attending an AFL game.

Sydney has used her stunning, model looks to her advantage, fronting fashion campaigns for Miu Miu, Gen Z skincare brand Laneige and Armani, which are sure to have pulled in big bucks.

But her collaboration with Frankie’s Bikinis was her brainchild, having already teamed up with the brand on Euphoria.

Sydney has previously spoken of how she models and advertises for brands because she feels a pressure to be earning money all the time – with no rich family to fall back on.

She told the Hollywood Reporter: “If I just acted, I wouldn’t be able to afford my life in LA. I take deals because I have to.

“If I wanted to take a six-month break, I don’t have income to cover that. They don’t pay actors like they used to, and with streamers, you no longer get residuals.

“The established stars still get paid, but I have to give five per cent to my lawyer, 10 per cent to my agents, three per cent or something like that to my business manager.

“I have to pay my publicist every month, and that’s more than my mortgage.”

Sydney Sweeney as a whistleblower in the film Reality.

Sydney’s drive to make money comes from her humble upbringing in Spokane, Washington.

When she was first starting out, Sydney‘s family would frequently travel the 2000 kilometres from Spokane to LA and rent places there while she worked on small parts in films including The Ward and Spiders 3D, which did not make a lot of money.

The family ended up relocating to LA but when her dad lost his job and went bankrupt, they were forced to sell their house and move into a motel.

Sydney has said: “We lived in one room. My mum and I shared a bed and my dad and little brother shared a couch.

“Looking back now, it makes no sense, because if they couldn’t afford going back and forth, they were not going to be able to afford living in LA.”

Sydney apparently got A$525,000 for the second series of Euphoria.

Everything went downhill from there, and her parents got a divorce.

Even now, Sydney blames herself for what happened.

She said: “They always say, ‘It wasn’t your fault’. It was.”

Sydney was desperate to get her family back together, and had always planned to buy back their family home with the money she earned from acting when she hit 18.

However, despite having had small roles in big TV shows Heroes, 90210 and Grey’s Anatomy, she had “nowhere near enough money”.

She said: “I only had $800 to my name. My parents weren’t back together and there was nothing I could do to help. I never cried more in my entire life.

“I hated going home and friends or family members being like, ‘When are you going to come home and get a real job?’.

“There were a lot of really condescending statements that would make me disappointed in myself and guilty that my parents had given up so much to allow me to follow my dreams.”

Sydney keeps working so she can continue earning money. Picture: Presley Ann/Getty Images for LACMA

But, thanks to her successful TV career and modelling, Sydney was finally able to splash out on a Los Angeles mansion in January 2022, paying US$3 million (A$4.5m) — a whopping US$305,000 (A$460,000) over the asking price.

The 90-year-old house – in which she lives with her fiance Jonathan Davino – was described as “Tudor traditional” in the listing, and has five bedrooms and four bathrooms throughout its 975 square metres.

It’s very private as well, atop a tall hill overlooking the street, with a three-car garage building included.

Sydney told the Associated Press: “I always thought that when I turned 18, I’d have all this money and I’d buy back my parents’ house and put them all back together again. And I never was able to, and I never did.

“So now being able to be in a house is such an incredible, humbling, amazing accomplishment that I still can’t believe I was able to pull off.”

This article originally appeared in The Sun and was reproduced with permission.