Sabrina Carpenter has made quite the return to Saturday Night Live.
Carpenter, 26, pulled double duty as the host and musical guest during Saturday’s episode, marking her hosting debut. She previously performed on the late-night sketch comedy show in 2024.
Singing from her latest album, Man’s Best Friend, Carpenter performed “Manchild” followed by “Nobody’s Son.”
During her performance of the latter, Carpenter sang the lyrics “he sure f***ed me up” not once, but twice during the live broadcast. The expletive was silenced when the show aired on the west coast, and in being uploaded to the show’s YouTube channel.
Fans were stunned by Carpenter’s decision not to censor her lyrics, with one person writing on X: “The fact that she doubled down and kept going ... I thought she realized after the first time. I love her so much.”
“The first one, I was like, ‘Did I just hear what I think I did? Surely not.’ Then the second one, I was like Oh! I mean, it is past 1 AM ET, but still, you don’t expect that on #SNL,” someone else wrote while a third simply said: “Oops potty mouth.”
Another viewer was so outraged that they threatened to take action, writing to the show on X: “What are you doing about this? I am going to make an official complaint to the FCC unless you issue an apology by Tuesday 5pm EST.”
“It’s the network’s responsibility to censor it!” someone else wrote on X. “They should have the lyrics up on a separate screen with their hand over the mute button.”
Others wondered if SNL could be fined for Carpenter’s actions.
The Independent has reached out to SNL and a representative for Carpenter for comment.
While promoting her new album, which was released in August, Carpenter did warn that it wasn’t for the overly sensitive. Speaking on CBS Mornings with Gayle King, she said: “The album is not for any pearl-clutchers.”
Carpenter did then clarify that “even pearl-clutchers can listen to an album like that in their own solitude and find something that makes them smirk and chuckle to themselves.”
When the album and its cover image were first announced in June, it immediately faced criticism. The image shows Carpenter on her hands and knees while an anonymous figure in a suit grips her by the hair. A second promotional photo, released alongside the cover, depicted a dog wearing a heart-shaped collar tag inscribed with the words “Man’s Best Friend.”
Carpenter addressed that controversy during her SNL opening monologue.
“Some people got a little freaked out by the cover,” Carpenter said after showing the imagery to viewers. “I’m not sure why. It was just this me on all fours with an unseen figure pulling my hair. But what people don’t realize is, that’s just how they cropped it. If you zoom out, it’s clearly a picture from the 50th anniversary special of Bowen [Yang] helping me up by the hair.”
Then, as the image zoomed out again, Carpenter added: “After Martin Short shoved me out of the buffet line.”
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