The internet can’t stop talking about the cover art for Sabrina Carpenter’s new album, Man’s Best Friend, but at least one person doesn’t see the issue: Tamra Judge.
The Real Housewives of Orange County star, 57, reposted a tweet about the cover via X on Thursday, June 12, and shared her own take on the risqué photograph. “What’s all the fuss about? Looks like me in the ’80s!” Judge quipped.
Carpenter, 26, surprised fans earlier this week when she announced that her seventh studio album will be dropping in August, just over one year after she released the Grammy-winning Short n’ Sweet. While her fans — known as Carpenters — were thrilled by the news, she also faced criticism for the artwork, which shows her on all fours as a man pulls her hair. Another image, seemingly the back cover of the album, is a closeup of a dog wearing a collar that reads, “Man’s Best Friend.”
After the cover debuted online, Glasgow Women’s Aid, a Scotland-based advocacy organization for women experiencing domestic violence, slammed Carpenter for the “regressive” artwork. “Picturing herself on all fours, with a man pulling her hair and calling it ‘Man’s Best Friend’ isn’t subversion,” the organization wrote via Instagram on Thursday, June 12. “It’s a throwback to tired tropes that reduce women to pets, props, and possessions and promote an element of violence and control. 
We’ve fought too hard for this. 
.”
The group continued, “We get Sabrina’s brand is packaged up retro glam but we really don’t need to go back to the tired stereotypes of women. 
Sabrina is pandering to the male gaze and promoting misogynistic stereotypes, which is ironic given the majority of her fans are young women!”
Carpenter’s supporters, meanwhile, argued that the cover is actually satirical, like much of her previous, innuendo-heavy work. “Everybody scandalized as f*** about sabrina carpenter and this is literally her,” tweeted one X user alongside images of Bugs Bunny in drag. Another social media commentator added, “I do believe Sabrina Carpenter is ‘for the male gaze’ in the same way as, like, Betty Boop. She’s a very attractive woman obviously but to me, there’s something rather comedic about her brand of sexiness and I think she likes it that way.”
Sabrina Carpenter Hits Back at ‘Obsessed’ Critics Who Say She’s Too Raunchy
The “Espresso” singer hasn’t directly acknowledged the controversy over the cover art, but in a Rolling Stone cover story published earlier this week, she hit back at critics who’ve called her lyrics and live show too sexy for her young audience.
“It’s always so funny to me when people complain,” she said in the interview, published Thursday. “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.”
She went on to note that she hopes listeners realize that her so-called raunchy moments are meant to be seen as tongue-in-cheek.
“There’s so many more moments than the ‘Juno’ positions, but those are the ones you post every night and comment on. I can’t control that,” she explained. “If you come to the show, you’ll [also] hear the ballads, you’ll hear the more introspective numbers. I find irony and humor in all of that, because it seems to be a recurring theme. I’m not upset about it, other than I feel mad pressure to be funny sometimes.”
