Sabrina Carpenter Addresses Claims That She Referenced ‘Lolita’ In A Recent Photoshoot
Can we leave this girl alone? Please?
Featured Image Credit: Getty
Topics: Celebs, Music, Sabrina Carpenter
Ilana Frost
Topics: Celebs, Music, Sabrina Carpenter
If people do not shut the fuck up about my girl, Sabrina Carpenter, I’m gonna need to take a few mental health days. Whenever a female A-list pop star hits a peak, a brutal wave of misogynistic backlash follows… I fear Sabrina’s in that phase now. The public was eating up her playful, hyperfeminine image and her ABBA-meets-Dolly-Parton pop for a while. But now, the internet’s suddenly decided that all her songs sound the same, she’s too sexual, and she’s actually super problematic. Sigh. This new criticism kicked off when Sabrina dropped her Jack Antonoff-produced single, “Manchild,” and it didn’t exactly get the “Espresso” reaction. Things escalated when she revealed her (evidently provocative) Man’s Best Friend album cover, where she poses on all fours with someone gently pulling her hair. Somehow, that photo sparked accusations that she’s “male-centered” and pandering to “the male gaze.”
Most recently, critics have been obsessing over a fairly vague similarity between Sabrina’s September 2024 W photoshoot and the 1997 film adaption of Lolita, a story famously centered on a sexual relationship between an adult man and an underage girl. The similarity in question? Sabrina lies in the grass in one photo, and so does Lolita in one scene. In a new TikTok comment, Sabrina Carpenter addressed the Lolita photoshoot accusations.
A TikToker, @arcafan999, shared a video with side-by-side images of the supposedly similar Man’s Best Friend cover and Lolita scene. They used the TikTok sound, “What the ffff? I’m sorry for my language. What the F is this?” and wrote, “Me after seeing Sabrina’s lolita photoshoot.” Sabrina saw the video and responded to the accusation in the comments section. “I’ve never seen this movie,” she wrote. “It’s never been on my mood board and never would be.” Period. (Anyone who really thinks she was inspired by Lolita doesn’t know anything about this girl, sorry.)
The same day, Sabrina also had to defend herself on Twitter when a troll commented on her album cover, asking, “Does she have a personality outside of sex?” The “Manchild” singer cheekily replied, “Girl, yes, and it is goooooood.” Like, has this hater seen a single one of her interviews or music videos? Or seen her on SNL? Or watched her unhinged Christmas special? Please.
During her recent interview with Rolling Stone, Sabrina discussed the “too sexual” criticism. “It’s always so funny to me when people complain,” she said, pointing out, “Those are the songs that you’ve made popular. Clearly you love sex. You’re obsessed with it.” Sabrina noted that there are plenty of cool moments in her show besides the “Juno” positions, but that’s what goes viral on TikTok. “If you come to the show, you’ll hear the ballads, you’ll hear the more introspective numbers,” she said. “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.”
Welp, despite the ridiculous backlash over all these non-issues, “Manchild” still debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Love that for her.