‘I can not give a f*** about it’

Sabrina Carpenter knows what’s being said about her — she just doesn’t care.

The pop star unveiled the cover art for her forthcoming album, Man’s Best Friend, on Wednesday and was quickly faced with criticism. On the cover, Carpenter is seen on her knees, wearing a little black dress and heels. She’s looking at the camera, doe-eyed, while a man, who is standing in front of her, grabs her hair.

The online discussion surrounding the album’s cover art is brimming with divisive opinions. Some people are calling it contradictory to Carpenter’s “man-hater” attitude. Others, however, are defending it as being intentionally controversial — because Carpenter isn’t one to do things without subtext.

“The concept of being a man-hater yet making your album cover a pic of you getting on your knees for a man while he grips your hair in a degrading manner is so odd,” one fan wrote on X, while another added, “Her man hating is all performative.”

The 26-year-old singer is no stranger to criticizing men in her songs. On “Please Please Please,” she begs her current partner not to embarrass her. On “Dumb & Poetic,” she laments being fooled by a seemingly good guy. On “Manchild,” her lead single off of Man’s Best Friend, she complains about how immature men can be.

To say that the album artwork is proof that Carpenter’s critique of men is suddenly inauthentic, for some fans, misses the mark entirely.

“My ‘woke’ opinion but everyone’s reaction to this is just more purity bs that was forced onto women hundreds of years ago cause you just cant believe that women are something other than ‘pure’ and ‘innocent,’” one fan said in defense of the cover.

Man’s Best Friend is out Aug. 29. Until then, Carpenter isn’t all that concerned about what people might think of it.

“I’m living in the glory of no one hearing it or knowing about it, and so I can not care,” she told Rolling Stone for its July-August cover story. “I can not give a f*** about it, because I’m just so excited.”

Even Carpenter’s Rolling Stone cover has generated discourse. On it, the pop star wears only white lace stockings, while her Rapunzel-length hair strategically covers certain parts of her body. On Rolling Stone’s official Instagram post unveiling the cover, many fans have come to Carpenter’s defense, again.

“This is the least sexual image, it’s simply a feminine figure nude, with hair covering intimate areas, it’s reminiscent of the birth of Venus by Botticelli, if we’re viewing any image of a nude body as sexual we’re dangerously straying into conservatism here,” one user wrote.

Added another fan, “People turned on her so fast after that album cover (as we know, a woman comparing herself to a man’s literal female dog is to be taken at 100% face value and must mean that she now thinks all women should submit to men and be tradwives or w/e). and just in general young people are more conservative and prudish than ever, we are so quickly backsliding into weird christian fundamentalism as a society.”

Carpenter celebrates her sexuality, while still prioritizing her female fan base. That she would suddenly turn around and cater to the male gaze feels off-brand for her, especially following the critical reception of Short n’ Sweet, the two-time Grammy-winning album on which she exudes sexual positivity. Tracks like “Bed Chem,” for instance, are rife with both cheeky innuendos and goofy, straightforward proclamations of being a woman who loves sex. Carpenter sings about it all so casually. Her NSFW lyrics aren’t as salacious as they are cleverly written.

“Anytime I didn’t really want to be nice and please people, I could use sarcasm as a tactic of being transparent, and I didn’t come across as rude or bitchy or hard to work with,” she told Rolling Stone. “This opens a whole other conversation [about] how women have to reshape their dialogue and overall intentions in order to make sure they’re not coming off a certain way. When in reality, I’ve started to realize it doesn’t make you a bad person to be assertive, or know what you want.”

If the controversy surrounding her album artwork and Rolling Stone cover is any indication, Carpenter isn’t afraid of a little backlash. She’s exuding femininity on her own terms, in a way that makes sense to her. Whether or not you understand it is of little concern to her.