Quick – someone inform the church elders! Sabrina Carpenter just released the cover for her new album and it’s a little bit provocative! The artwork in question has been branded by turns “disturbing”, “disgusting” and “triggering”, sending shockwaves through the “Espresso” singer’s fandom after she shared it on Instagram. I encountered these visceral reactions via a number of scandalised headlines before, in fact, I’d even seen the picture itself. My imagination conjured up all kinds of depraved imagery in the interim – because surely, for people to be this offended, the cover of Carpenter’s forthcoming follow-up to the Grammy-winning Short n’ Sweet album must be truly reprehensible?
So it was that I clicked through to find a photograph of the 26-year-old pop star on her hands and knees, clad in a short (yet otherwise demure) black dress and looking off past the camera while a faceless person – viewers have jumped to the conclusion that it’s a man, but there’s nothing to prove that – stands to the side, loosely holding a wad of her signature blonde locks in their hand.
