The music industry has been preparing us for a Sabrina Carpenter Summer, but since the arrival of the blowout queen’s sophomore album single, “Man Child,” it hasn’t been totally smooth sailing. Sabrina has impressively gotten her French manicured claws locked into the mainstream. Along with millions of beloved fans, this level of fame means that everything she puts out, from new music to the packaging that comes with it, is teed up to be glorified or crucified under a microscope by our chronically online general public.
Enter: Sabrina’s provocative new album cover for Man’s Best Friend, coupled with an even sexier shoot with Rolling Stone. In the album art, Sabrina is seen on all fours while a conveniently cropped off-screen dude (and yet his lower body still manages to resemble Barry Keoghan, right?) barely yanks on her blonde hair. Within hours of posting with excitement for her new project, the internet was divided on whether Sabrina Carpenter’s Man’s Best Friend album cover is bad bitch behavior or a feminist failure.
UPDATE: Sabrina’s New Man’s Best Friend Album Cover
Did Sabrina change the Man’s Best Friend album cover?
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Yes, she did! At least, partially. Sabrina added a new, more PG alternate image as an additional official album cover for fans to purchase. Sabrina shared the new cover on Instagram, with the caption “& here is a new alternate cover approved by God available now on my website.”
Obvi, that was a heavy-handed joke. The cover was more literally approved by Sabrina’s label, clearly intent on making sure the album could make as much money as possible, and I suppose BDSM dog whistling doesn’t play well with the parents of the teenybopper crowd.
I get Sabrina’s sass, sitting in the hyper-fixated internet’s hot seat isn’t fun. But considering Sabrina did ultimately acknowledge outside criticism by providing this back up art, it would been pretty bad bitch to tackle the haters head on, no?
Sabrina Carpenter’s Album Art Controversy, Explained
What does Sabrina’s Man’s Best Friend album cover mean?
The album cover depicts Sabrina posing playfully on all fours, with her hair acting as a leash for a mysterious male suitor, pretty blatantly positioning herself as a dog. Her manicured paw rests on the man’s leg. Just in case you couldn’t connect the dots, the back cover of the art is a furry dog wearing a collar with the album title, Man’s Best Friend, an age-old colloquialism referring to pups. It’s also worth noting that Sabrina is dolled up in a vintage party dress on a 70s-friendly carpet, and the photo is aged to look retro, like a Polaroid. So, at first glance, the cover appears to indicate Sabrina is all for barking like a dog these days when it comes to men. But the internet thinks (or hopes) there could be more to the story.
Why are people mad about Sabrina Carpenter’s album art?
Some fans have taken issue with the idea of a woman (especially one that millions of young girls idolize) apparently co-signing becoming a man’s pet/property in 2025 — one easy implication to take away from Sabrina simping like a dog on cam. “I’m so tired of this oversexualisation of women, this is not feminism and this is not empowering,” one person wrote online. Others added how off this dehumanizing imagery feels in the era of Trump 2.0, with women under dangerous attack. For the record, Sabrina told Rolling Stones she “can not give a f**k about” the backlash “because [she’s] just so excited.”
But other fans are defending their icon for having vision. Maybe the setup is intentionally serving up the male gaze on a platter to call out the ridiculousness of what some men want from women instead of actually satisfying it. Could Sabrina be dangling subtle satire behind the blank stare in her blue eyes?
Is Sabrina Carpenter’s album art feminist?
There’s a theory that Sabrina is using Man’s Best Friend (from the title to the cover to the forthcoming songs) to play into the bimbo-coded buzz around her name instead of genuinely being down to grovel on the ground for a boy. You know, a bit of a laugh, Danielle, tongue-in-cheek. But if this picture is supposed to be sexy satire, it’s missing the mark. Not because she’s being too sexual here, but because, all in all, the presentation is pretty damn tame. I actually think that this safe swing at something much spicier could be the problem here.
What, I’m supposed to be gagged at the mere allusion to doggy style? And that’s what satire has to make you do: recoil at the absurdity of whatever it’s critiquing to get your wheels spinning about society’s mindless moves. Like Britney Spears in the “My Prerogative” music video or the entire conceit of the character Wonder Woman, to make a flippant statement about being a woman in a man’s world, you have to scream in the patriarchy’s face, not sexily whisper. If the irony in satire has to be biting, this image of Sabrina only has baby teeth.
It seems like a fair guess that Man’s Best Friend is set to be a flirty fuck you to how men yank women around for their pleasure after hearing the lyrics of “Man Child” and seeing the video. But if so, this album art is watering down that message because the image doesn’t really hit. Sure, it’s got a retro styling, potentially nodding to retro thinking, and the man’s face (and therefore opinion) is intentionally not a part of the equation. But as some have pointed out, it’d still be mighty easy for a man to run with the proposition that being dogwalked is exactly what cute women like Sabrina enjoy, and in turn, this suggestion comes across as soft glam rage bait for those who disagree.
But, on the other hand, Sabrina’s album art (and thus the next album) could genuinely be about getting frisky for a man you find worthy (or at least worth the pleasure). For the record, I think a more risque ownership of her sexuality would be a relatable and earned upgrade for the pop singer who already likes to sing about sex. But I just hope if Sabrina Carpenter is belting about bending over backward for her boo, she does it more unapologetically, like Rihanna’s “S&M” era, and a little less oopsie-cutesy style, like Betty Boop.
