Sabrina Carpenter says her alternate cover for her next album Man’s Best Friend is approved by the man upstairs himself.
The Grammy winner debuted a secondary cover for her seventh studio album on Wednesday morning. In the new black and white shot, Carpenter glamorously clutches onto a man in a suit with a few other stray men in the background.
She also subtly addressed the controversy the Man’s Best Friend cover originally caused, by writing in the caption of the post that the cover that the new art was “approved by God.”
After announcing the new album a few weeks ago, Carpenter received backlash for the record’s cover art, which saw her on her knees in a black dress as a man (some have theorized it’s just her dressed up in a suit) stood out-of-shot and clutched onto her hair. The cover sparked a widespread conversation online about sex-positive feminism, with some critiquing the “Espresso” singer for feeding into the male gaze.
Shortly after she announced the new album and before she sparked such backlash online, Carpenter addressed critics who complain about her sexy songs and live performances in a profile with Rolling Stone.
“It’s always so funny to me when people complain,” Carpenter said. “They’re like, ‘All she does is sing about this.’ But those are the songs that you’ve made popular. Clearly you love sex. You’re obsessed with it. It’s in my show.”
And with no knowledge of the controversy to come from the Man’s Best Friend’s album cover, she also admitted that it “truly feel[s] like I’ve never lived in a time where women have been picked apart more and scrutinized in every capacity.”
“We’re in such a weird time where you would think it’s girl power, and women supporting women, but in reality, the second you see a picture of someone wearing a dress on a carpet, you have to say everything mean about it in the first 30 seconds that you see it,” Carpenter added.
Ahead of the record’s announcement, Carpenter released the album’s lead single, “Manchild,” which swiftly became her second Billboard Hot 100 hit. Man’s Best Friend releases August 29th, arriving almost exactly a year after she released the Grammy-winning Short n’ Sweet last year on August 23rd.
