Sabrina Carpenter: Dead Poets Society

This article is published in issue 34-35 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until August 27, 2024.

So, last April, Sabrina Carpenter commented on her performance at the Coachella Festival: “When I was 21 I thought I was really old. Now I feel like I’m just getting started.” And she was right: shortly thereafter, her last two singles, Expressedwith that summer hit refrain «that’s that me espresso», and Please, Please, Please they ended up at the top of the global charts.

Until a few years ago, Sabrina Carpenter was the classic Disney actress, protagonist of series such as Girl Meets World, and released albums on the studio label, Hollywood Records. Then two things happened: she moved to the decidedly more adult Island Records and Olivia Rodrigo released her fiery single drivers licensewhich was a reference to an ex-boyfriend (presumably the co-star of High School MusicalJoshua Bassett), who had left Rodrigo for “that blonde girl” (presumably Carpenter). Carpenter responded with a hit of her own, because I liked a boy: “I’m a homewrecker, I’m a slut / I got death threats while I was loading vans / Tell me who I am, I guess I ain’t got a choice / All ’cause I liked a boy.”

That album, emails i can’t send of 2022, re-cast Carpenter as both an introspective, sex-positive singer-songwriter and a “short pop bop queen,” to quote Quinta Brunson. (Carpenter is five feet tall.) Since then, she’s found time to start a romance with the star of Saltburn Barry Keoghan, to headline an international tour and open for the concerts of theEras Tour of Taylor Swift. “It’s great to grow up idolizing someone, and then meet them,” she says of Swift. “On a personal level, she’s been a huge help to me. She’s taught me a lot about not losing my humanity.”

Has Swift given her any advice on navigating public relations? Carpenter demurs. “I don’t think you can rely on a manual for this stuff,” she says. Of course, she understands why fans might be interested in her love life: “I write about it a lot.” But she doesn’t want her songs to just be a gossip mill. “This is my diary,” she says. “Once I put it out there, it’s up to other people to interpret. People don’t always know what’s going on in other people’s heads, much less in the heads of a girl experiencing love and a lot of other things for the first time.”

With his album due out on August 23rd, aptly titled Short n’ SweetCarpenter taps into the effortless energy that fans have shown they appreciate in her music. “The songs that really connect with people are the ones that are closest to my true self, whether it’s light and fun or raw and vulnerable… That’s given me the confidence to dig deeper,” she explains. “I don’t think of myself as a person who’s always sad, and my last album was dealing with a specific pain. I’m in a good place now, even when I’m nervous about the future. There’s so much more uncertainty, so many possibilities. I’m keeping my eyes wide open.” It can’t be easy when millions of eyes are looking back at you. “Yeah,” she says, smiling. “To be honest, if I weren’t in this environment, I don’t think I would have ended up on social media. I don’t feel so natural documenting my every move. I feel much happier when I’m in the moment.”

There were also some intense moments. Carpenter shot part of a music video at a Catholic church in Brooklyn, and the diocese responded by re-blessing the site and punishing the priest who allowed the production. In response, the singer took the stage at Coachella wearing a T-shirt that read “Jesus Was a Carpenter.”

During concerts, he got into the habit of finishing the song Nonsense with bold, off-the-cuff words. She didn’t imagine those endings would become one of her signature traits. “Will I keep doing them until I’m ninety? Probably not, but I like to capture those moments that magically happen.” Just like the one in which she said goodbye to Coachella, throwing a provocation to Keoghan: “I made his knees so weak that he had to spread mine / He drinks my bath water like it’s red wine.” The reference is Saltburnthe public gets it and goes wild over that dedication, without knowing that a few weeks later Keoghan himself would appear in the video of Please, Please, Please. Where she sings a message-verse: «I know I have good taste (…), please, don’t embarrass me, motherfucker…».

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