At just over five feet tall, Sabrina Carpenter is one of the giants of the pop world. Her latest album, “Short n’ Sweet,” debuted at #1. But that’s not the half of it: Her first three singles – “Espresso,” “Please Please Please” and “Taste” – all hit the top five of Billboard’s Hot 100 in the same week. The only other music act to do that was The Beatles back in 1964.
It’s a testament to her talent, and the will to keep going no matter what.
“Sunday Morning” met Carpenter at a rehearsal studio in rural Pennsylvania, not far from where she grew up – a place to practice her stage show in relative privacy away from the paparazzi. She said it feels like home to her: “The air is better, the water’s better, the bread’s better.”
Her new concert stage is a giant dollhouse, with a piano, a fireplace, a bedroom, and a long, curved staircase that she navigates in heels.
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There’s also an army of support people behind the scenes, but the show itself is all Sabrina. Beneath all the frilly outfits is a backbone of steel.
Asked what might be the biggest misconception about her, Carpenter laughed, “How much time do we have? I think a misperception is that I don’t write my music. I think a lot of people think because I have, you know, a producer and co-writers that I love, that I’m sitting in the room on my phone, not writing songs.”
In fact, she wrote or co-wrote all of her recent songs.
At just 25, with her clever lyrics playing everywhere and her face on the image head to toe on the latest issue of Time magazine, Sabrina Carpenter seems to have just exploded on the music scene. But it took her more than a decade to get here.
She’s one of four girls born to Elizabeth and David Carpenter, and young Sabrina showed a love of music early on. “They never told me to ‘stop singing,'” she said. “And I think that, like, psychologically, really probably helped me.”
She started posting singing videos on YouTube, and then at 13 she earned a part in the Disney Channel’s “Girl Meets World.” She also kept making music, and by 2020 had already recorded four albums when she landed the lead role in Tina Fey’s Broadway hit, “Mean Girls.” It would be a turning point in her career, but not like she’d hoped.
“I rehearsed for about three months in New York, and we opened our first two nights, and then COVID humbled me – humbled me very quickly!” she laughed. “Like, I was sent home, and just was like, Wow. I feel like I could do eight shows a week, you know, and I’ve been training for it. And now it’s just, like, silence.”
But the silence was a blessing. Hunkered down at home, Carpenter crafted her deeply personal album, “Emails I Can’t Send.” And when it was released in 2022 it launched her to the next level of fame.
“Nonsense,” from the album “Emails I Can’t Send”:
She’s learned to live her life under the celebrity microscope. For the past year she’s been dating Irish actor Barry Keoghan, who made a splash in the Oscar-nominated “Banshees of Inisherin.” Last spring Carpenter cast Keoghan as her no-good boyfriend in the music video for her hit “Please Please Please”:
Please please please don’t prove I’m right
Please please please
Don’t bring me to tears when I just did my makeup so nice
Despite a wish to keep her personal life personal, Carpenter credited her “not-even-biased opinion” for casting Keoghan: “I was like, ‘Who’s the greatest actor that I can find for this music video?’ And he was next to me in a chair. And he was so excited about it, and he likes the song, which is great, he’s a fan of the song. He does like my music a lot, yeah.”
He’s not alone. Her shows now sell out night after night, something she got a taste of when she opened for Taylor Swift’s blockbuster “Eras” tour last year.
It’s a lot for any 25-year-old, and through it all she credits her mother for helping keep herself grounded. “She’s so selfless, and has been that way her whole life with me and my sisters,” Carpenter said. “I love her so much!”
Asked for the best advice her mom gave her, Carpenter replied, “Not to take everything so seriously all the time. So, that’s been really helpful. … My mom’s such a positive person. I don’t think she’s ever made me feel like what I was doing was too much, ever.”
Carpenter is now eight shows into an international tour, and as her profile keeps growing, so does the pressure. “There’s always gonna be stress, there’s always going to be anxiety, there’s always gonna be drama,” she said. “But for me, like, being able to laugh about it is really important. So, I would say that. And also caffeine. Because without caffeine, I wouldn’t be doing this interview right now!”
Sabrina Carpenter performs “Espresso”:
You can stream the Sabrina Carpenter album “Short n’ Sweet” by clicking on the embed below (Free Spotify registration required to hear the tracks in full):
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Story produced by John D’Amelio. Editor: Lauren Barnello.
