Sabrina Carpenter has always been a triple threat. She can sing, she can dance, and she has a wicked sense of humour. So rather than be cowed by the outraged response to the original album art for her upcoming album Man’s Best Friend, she’s decided to troll the trolls right back.
Puritanical Gen Z teens were horrified when the 26-year-old pop star released the first album cover, which features her on her knees with a man’s hand loosely holding strands of her blonde hair like a leash.
It was par for the course for Carpenter, who loves to subvert her carefully crafted image as a pint-sized pin-up by being a bit of a pervert. But you’d think she’d posed nude in a dog collar the way people reacted to the picture.
In response, the singer is now offering an alternate cover for people who wish to enjoy Man’s Best Friend in a God-honouring way.
“Here is a new alternate cover approved by God available now on my website ,” Carpenter posted on X, with two black-and-white images of herself in a ball gown on the arm of a man.
i signed some copies of Man’s Best Friend for you guys
— Sabrina Carpenter (@SabrinaAnnLynn) June 25, 2025
& here is a new alternate cover approved by God
available now on my website 🤍https://t.co/E7QJWhZsSb pic.twitter.com/Hl4xInhvnY
The photos are almost a direct recreation of a 1957 photograph of Marilyn Monroe embracing her then-husband Arthur Miller. Monroe, of course, made the song Diamond’s a Girl’s Best Friend famous with her performance in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. With Man’s Best Friend, Carpenter appears to be paying homage to another iconic blonde while exploring the troubled dynamics of heterosexual relationships.
By now Carpenter is an old hand at weathering scandals over her being seen as “too sexy”.
In 2023, a priest came under fire for allowing Carpenter to film the music video for her song Feather at the Blessed Virgin Mary Catholic Church in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Monsignor Jamie Gigantiello was later investigated for financial misconduct and fired in 2024.
There were reports over 800 complaints made to OFCOM earlier this year over her performance at the BRITS, where she included a cheeky pre-Watershed romp with a dancer dressed as a member of the King’s Guard.
And there is the regular hum of disapproval around her benignly raunchy stage shows that includes demonstrating sex positions in front of an audience that skews towards young girls and women.
Carpenter is certainly having the last laugh, though. Her new single Manchild went straight to Number One, and Man’s Best Friend is due out on 29 August 2025.
