Sabrina Carpenter Claps Back at ‘Man’s Best Friend’ Backlash and Swears on ‘Saturday Night Live’

Sabrina Carpenter playfully clapped back at controversy over her album Man’s Best Friend during her appearance on Saturday Night Live.

The “Tears” singer, 26, pulled double duty as host and musical guest for SNL’s latest season 51 episode on Saturday, October 18. One shocking moment saw Carpenter twice use the word “f**k” during her performance “Nobody’s Song” without being bleeped on the East Coast feed, in an apparent technical glitch.

Elsewhere, Carpenter wasted no time in addressing criticism of the sexy lyrics and imagery on her seventh studio album.

“Some people got a little freaked out by the cover,” she told viewers in her monologue. “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 [Saturday Night Live] 50th anniversary special of Bowen [Yang] helping me up by the hair — after Martin Short shoved me out of the buffet line, saying something like, ‘Daddy need his mini quiche.’”

Carpenter then offered to “clear up some misconceptions” regarding her feelings about sexuality.

“Everyone thinks of me as this ‘horn dog’ pop star, but there’s really so much more to me,” she teased. “I’m not just horny. I’m also turned-on, and I’m sexually charged, and I love to read. My favorite book is the encyclopedia. It’s so big, and it’s hard.”

Despite being name-checked by Carpenter in her SNL monologue, cast member Yang actually missed Saturday’s show to attend an awards show in Los Angeles. (Yang still contributed to the writing and appeared in a pre-taped sketch.)

SNL also recently made headlines on October 11 when Charli XCX had a cameo during musical guest Role Model’s performance of “Sally, When the Wine Runs Out.” Many suspected that Charli XCX’s decision to wear a “Max’s Kansas City” T-shirt may have been a not-so-subtle response to Taylor Swift’s Life of a Showgirl song, “Actually Romantic,” which fans theorized was about a beef between the two stars. (Charli XCX, 33, declined to comment when asked directly about the supposed feud in an October 14 interview.)

Meanwhile, Carpenter has her own history with Swift, as she was a support act on the Latin American, Australian and Singaporean legs of the Eras Tour in 2024. Carpenter most recently duetted with Swift, 35, on the latter’s Life of a Showgirl title track.