The Reaction Is Fascinating To Me

Sabrina Carpenter is set to release her next studio album titled Man’s Best Friend and is addressing the controversy surrounding it.

The “Please Please Please” singer shared the album cover art for her seventh studio disc and raised some eyebrows. Carpenter is featured on her knees next to a faceless person wearing a suit, standing over her and grabbing her hair.

“If I’m being completely transparent, I don’t do anything anticipating what the reaction will be. I only do things that speak to me, that feel right, and make sense when you hear the music,” Carpenter told Interview magazine. “When I came up with the imaging for it, it was so clear to me what it meant. So the reaction is fascinating to me. You just watch it unravel and go, ‘Wow.’”

The controversy surrounding the artwork was the appearance that Carpenter showed herself in a submissive manner, with many pointing to it looking like it was degrading a woman.

“I do feel like submission is both dominant and submissive. It really depends on what your intentions are and what you want, and what you crave, and what you need,” she said. “The image, the way I see it, is a metaphor, but I’m sure that other people are like, ‘Dang, she’s a sub?’”

When asked if the comments around the cover art made her laugh or cry, she said: “I guess a little bit of both. My experience and point of view are going to be so different from how other people live their lives. Sometimes I read things and I’m like, ‘Wow, I don’t experience this that way, but if they do, then that’s real to them.’ But what I’m going through in this record, which is loss and heartbreak and celebration and trying to navigate my life as a young woman — it’s not so much like I’m above it all, but I’m not beneath it, either.”

Man’s Best Friend was released on August 29 through Island Records.