Sabrina Carpenter, the former Disney girl, Taylor Swift’s disciple, who has become the new pop star

On August 10, 2009, a young 10-year-old Sabrina Carpenter wrote this innocent tweet: “I was trying to enter a Taylor Swift karaoke contest to win tickets for a chance to meet her, but they told me I had to be 13 years old.” :(“. On February 23, 2024, it was Taylor Swift herself who introduced her as “the brilliant Sabrina Carpenter” while inviting her to the stage to sing at the piano with her in the middle of a concert in Sydney. “The Sabrina of 9 years I sang whitehorse “We never saw this coming!” wrote the one from Pennsylvania – just like Taylor – on his Instagram profile, where he has 34.6 million followers, in a publication in which he shared that exciting moment. Carpenter, who has been Swift’s opening act for much of her tour The Eras Tour, She has made good use of these last 15 years to go from being a simple fan to the pop star of the moment. This is demonstrated by another recent milestone: on April 30, she unseated her idol as world number 1 on Spotify. Espressohis last singlesurpassed FortnightTaylor’s song with Post Malone that had been crowning the list since it came out The Tortured Poets Department.

Like many of Swift’s contemporaries, Sabrina Carpenter also has her Disney girl past. Before slamming the company’s door as her predecessors Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato, Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens did a decade earlier, Carpenter joined Disney Channel to begin building her career. In 2011 she came third in the singing competition The Next Miley Cyrus Project, directed by Miley Cyrus herself; In 2013 she performed the song smile for the album inspired by Tinker Bell and her friends, Fairies: Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust; His voice had a recurring role in the animated series Princess Sofiawhere he also performed the song All You Need, and between 2014 and 2017 he starred in the sitcom Riley and the world. He has also lent his voice to other animated series in the franchise, such as Phineas and Ferb either Milo Murphy’s Lawsomething that runs in the family, since her aunt is the actress Nancy Cartwright, known for giving voice to several characters in The Simpsonincluding Bart, in the Anglo-Saxon version.

But she was clear that her voice was not meant to be hidden behind a cartoon. In April 2015 she released her first studio album, Eyes Wide Openwhich reached number 43 on the list of Billboard. Then, about to turn 16, they still described their style as teen pop with folk elements. ““Sabrina Carpenter has already carved out a niche for herself as the (teen) queen of sugary sweet country-pop,” began a review of music publishing Idolator, who equated her sound to that of “Taylor Swift before all the boys in town broke her heart.” A year later she decided that she was done with sugar and launched smoke and fire, an independent single far removed from the childish aesthetics to which his audience was accustomed, which was not even included in the album he released that year. “I’m so tired / burning like smoke and fire,” goes the song’s last verse. The resurgence of Sabrina Carpenter began.

“She can legitimately claim the title of full-fledged pop star,” claimed an article in the magazine ID about the singer following the release of the album Emails I Can’t Sendin 2022, which debuted at number 23 in Billboard. On the album, with a mix of experimental sound, oscillating between disco, pop or country, among other genres, she sings about being subject to public scrutiny, meeting her ex in a coffee shop or lying to her therapist. . “My previous music presented a side of myself that I didn’t feel was authentic at the time,” she admitted last year. in an interview with Vogue. “Honestly, it was much more exciting to write the truth, whether positive or negative or pretty or ugly or welcomed or not,” he said of his new work: “I think it mattered that I said what I felt instead of trying to sugarcoat things.” ”.

This work includes a direct shot at her then ex-boyfriend, the actor and singer Joshua Bassett, who in turn was a partner of the actress and singer – and former Disney girl, of course – Olivia Rodrigo. In 2021 Rodrigo released the song Driver License and many followers perceived references to Carpenter in those lyrics that narrated the pain he suffered when missing a person he loved and who left “with a blonde girl.” Rodrigo’s fans then attacked Carpenter, calling her a “homewrecker.” She unburdened herself a year later in song because i liked a boy. “Dating guys who have ex-girlfriends, no, I wouldn’t recommend it. I’m a homewrecker, a whore, I have death threats filling trucks. “You tell me, who am I? I guess I have no choice, all because I liked a boy,” the lyrics said.

The boy she likes now officially presented him as her new boyfriend on the carpet of the Met Gala in 2024. This is Barry Keoghan (Dublin, 31 years old), the actor who has given a lot of talk this year thanks to his role protagonist in Saltburn. On the Oscars red carpet, two months before, there were already many who were speculating about this relationship when Keoghan appeared with a bracelet with Sabrina’s name in true style. swiftie. “She’s drinking my bathwater like it’s red wine,” she said in April at her Coachella debut in a clear nod to one of the film’s most talke
d-about Keoghan scenes.

“I think there is a big difference between me two years ago and me now. Now I’m having fun, which I think is the biggest difference,” he confessed recently in an interview for the podcast by DJ Zane Lowe. That comfort of having finally found his place, filling stadiums with the singer of the moment and having a good time with the fashionable actor, is now transmitted in everything he does. Even Kim Kardashian called her “the pop star of the next generation” when presented her in April as the image of the new Skims campaign, her underwear brand ―which immediately went viral―. At just 25 years old, and barely 1.51 meters tall, Sabrina is willing to reach the top.