The pop star reveals Easter eggs, outfit secrets, and the inspirations behind the visual for VEVO’s Footnotes series
Sabrina Carpenter tucked a few blink-and-you-miss-it details into her “Manchild” video. On Thursday, the pop star teamed up with Vevo for a new Footnotes episode, sharing her favorite outfits and the inpspiration about the Man’s Best Friend single’s visual.
“The shoot was intended to be a 2-day shoot, but ended up being a three-day shoot once I realized I wanted more scenes in it. It was 35!!! outfits total,” Carpenter revealed at the start of the video. “My sister also hand-stitched ‘manchild’ on my jean shorts.”
Her favorite look, however, was “the red sequin dress from the bridge scene,” she said, though Carpenter noted that “the whole video was built around the white tie-up shirt and jean shorts.”
The video’s co-directors, Vania Heymann and Gal Muggia, said their goal was to create a trailer for a “nonsensical forgotten film,” inspired by “self-revelation films, Americana, and a kind of disco-era sensuality.” For Carpenter, the “music video wheels started to turn pretty quickly” after recording the song in the studio.
The video also reveals several Easter eggs, including an acronym for the album title, Man’s Best Friend, hidden on a license plate — a detail fans didn’t catch until Carpenter announced the album. She also shared her admiration for Lucille Ball, whom she drew inspiration from.
“[She] is one of the first great females who used humor as her superpower. I like to think that it sort of happened through my writing,” Carpenter said. “I felt more connected to songs that really embraced that part of my personality.”
“Manchild” was the standout single from her album Man’s Best Friend. The song earned her Grammy nominations for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Pop Solo Performance, and Best Music Video.
