Sabrina Carpenter is no stranger to walking the tightrope between pop stardom and provocation. Her new album, Man’s Best Friend, set to drop August 29, isn’t pulling any punches — and neither is its cover.
Announced June 11 via her social channels, the 26-year-old singer paired the release date with an image that landed like a match in a dry field. Dressed in heels and a tight black dress, she’s posed on all fours, eyes up, while a figure out of frame yanks her by the hair. The message wasn’t subtle. Neither was the response.
Some fans celebrated it as a cheeky take on submission and dominance, while others weren’t laughing — calling it exploitative, tone-deaf, and “manufactured edginess” in an era that’s still grappling with how female sexuality fits into the mainstream.
This is Carpenter’s seventh studio album and the follow-up to 2024’s Short n’ Sweet — a candy-coated juggernaut that launched her from pop darling to cultural lightning rod. That record climbed straight to No. 1 on Billboard and left behind a trail of chart-topping singles (Espresso, Please Please Please, Taste, Bed Chem) and think pieces dissecting her image, lyrics, and audience.
With Man’s Best Friend, she’s clearly doubling down.
The project’s lead single Manchild dropped June 5, paired with a video that sees Carpenter in baby-blue heels, a white blouse, and cutoffs short enough to cause a congressional hearing. TikTok loved it. Critics weren’t so sure.
This isn’t the first time Carpenter’s bent the needle on the sexual compass. Her Short n’ Sweet standout Juno made headlines with lines about wanting to get pregnant “just because” she’s into her partner. Live, she took it further, miming sex on stage in a sequined mini while asking, “Have you ever tried this one?”
Predictably, that performance stirred the same culture war cocktail: half of the internet defending her autonomy, the other half calling it cheap titillation. The bigger question, though, is who gets to define what’s empowering and what’s pandering — and why those lines are still drawn around women’s bodies.
Leora Tanenbaum, author of Sexy Selfie Nation, calls the outrage “a false dichotomy.”
“People want to box her into either playing to the male gaze or reclaiming it for herself. But that’s outdated thinking,” Tanenbaum told USA Today. “Women don’t need to justify their sexuality anymore — especially not to the same audience that cheered on Britney in a schoolgirl skirt.”
Carpenter’s evolution from Disney-adjacent ingénue to full-throttle pop provocateur has left some fans uncomfortable. But this discomfort says more about the culture than the artist. In 2025, women with agency are still expected to walk a tight line between desire and decency. And when they refuse, they get headlines — or heat.
Sabrina isn’t asking for permission. She’s daring people to look.
And people are looking.
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Last modified: June 12, 2025
