Did Sabrina Carpenter Just Address Her Controversial Album Cover in Rolling Stone?

When Sabrina Carpenter surprise announced her next album on Wednesday, she set the internet ablaze. Man’s Best Friend is coming August, and the album cover shows her on all fours next to a man who’s pulling her hair. Some online discourse found the imagery cheeky and fun, while others critiqued it for being degrading of women, worsened by dire political times including in a post-Roe world.

The singer addressed this topic of controversy in a recent Rolling Stone story, where she posed for the cover nearly nude. The interview happened before her Man’s Best Friend announcement and doesn't directly talk about the album cover, but it still addresses the general conversation. To Carpenter, it says a lot that people gravitate to her more sexually charged songs than the others she has to offer.

“It’s always so funny to me when people complain,” she told the magazine. “They’re like, ‘All she does is sing about this.’ But those are the songs that you’ve made popular. Clearly you love sex. You’re obsessed with it. It’s in my show. There [are] so many more moments than the ‘Juno’ positions, but those are the ones you post every night and comment on. I can’t control that. If you come to the show, you’ll [also] hear the ballads, you’ll hear the more introspective numbers. I find irony and humor in all of that, because it seems to be a recurring theme. I’m not upset about it, other than I feel mad pressure to be funny sometimes.”

Conversation about the album cover continues to spiral online. Some love it, finding lightness in its perceived sarcasm and dig towards men. (Carpenter is especially good at this, and it helps that fans are so interested in her love life, including decoding every lyrical jab she may take at exes, like potential digs at Barry Keoghan in her recent “Manchild” single.) Others can’t make sense of the album cover being a good thing.

“I don’t want to be pessimistic, but I truly feel like I’ve never lived in a time where women have been picked apart more and scrutinized in every capacity. I’m not just talking about me. I’m talking about every female artist that is making art right now,” Carpenter continued in her interview. It’s not just her or her own music, she explained, but she feels people are more unforgiving now than ever.

“We’re in such a weird time where you would think it’s girl power, and women supporting women, but in reality, the second you see a picture of someone wearing a dress on a carpet, you have to say everything mean about it in the first 30 seconds that you see it,” she added.

The star says she’s unfazed by online discourse and comments, confident in herself and her team’s choices. If that’s any indication, then fans should expect Carpenter to be unbothered by all the criticism of her album cover. She’s full steam ahead as more raunchy videos continue to drop before Man’s Best Friend.