Sabrina Carpenter leaned into her provocative image while pulling double duty as host and musical guest on Saturday Night Live.
During her opening monologue on Saturday (Oct. 18), the 26-year-old pop star addressed the buzz around the cover of her latest album, Man’s Best Friend, which shows her on all fours with an unseen person tugging her hair.
“Last time I was here, for the 50th anniversary, I got to sing with Paul Simon, and since then my new album Man’s Best Friend came out,” Carpenter told the audience. “Some people got a little freaked out by the cover. I’m not sure why. It’s just this.”
The “Manchild” singer then pulled up an image of the controversial cover on the screen, revealing a few added images to give it full context.
“But what people don’t realize it’s just how they cropped it,” she joked.” If you zoom out, it’s clearly a picture of me at the 50th anniversary special of Bowen [Yang] helping me up by the hair. After Martin Short shoved me out of the buffet line, saying something like, ‘Daddy need his mini-quiche.”
Carpenter went on to “clear up some misconceptions” about her public image.
“Everyone thinks of me as this, like, horndog pop star, but there’s really so much more to me,” she said. “I’m not just horny. I’m also turned on and I’m sexually charged. And I love to read. My favorite book is the encyclopedia. It’s so big and it’s hard…”
She then turned to the audience, attempting to show “there is a real person underneath all the sparkles and the wigs and the corsets.” Staying on-brand, she followed with a tradition from her concerts, vowing to arrest someone “hot” from the audience.
Before she could, SNL veteran Kenan Thompson rushed the stage as faux police lights flashed, placing Carpenter under arrest with a pair of fuzzy pink handcuffs.
“For being hot?” Carpenter asked. “No,” Thompson replied. “For falsely impersonating an officer 200 times at your concerts. You’re arresting innocent hot people.”
He then joked he was really there to get a cameo video for his niece, until Carpenter, without missing a beat, demanded $200,000 for it.
In addition to the monologue and a string of sketches, Carpenter also performed her songs “Manchild” and “Nobody’s Son” during the episode.
Watch Carpenter’s SNL monologue below.
