The pop star Sabrina Carpenter is popular for knowing how to make a moment memorable. Her appearance at the Saturday Night Live program was not different from others.
Sabrina came back to the show as a hostess and musical guest on the October 18, 2025, program. Moreover, this was her first time hosting the program. As the musical guest, Sabrina performed her most recent hit songs Manchild and Nobody’s Son. During her opening speech she addressed many of the hateful comments people made about her new album’s cover controversy. She talked about her characteristic humor and irony, and how many relate her to being “sexually provocative”.
“Some people got a little freaked out by my new album Mans Best Friend cover. I am not sure why, it was just this: Me on all fours, an unseen figure pulling my hair… What people don’t realize is that’s just how they cropped it,” she joked. “If you zoom out it’s clearly a picture from the [Saturday Night Live] 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 needs his mini quiche’.”
“Since I’m here, I wanna clear up some misconceptions people have about me. Everyone thinks of me as this ‘horndog popstar’, but there is really so much more to me. I am not just horny; I’m also turned on. I’m sexually charged and I love to read. My favorite book is the encyclopedia, it’s so big, and it’s hard… Okay, seriously, there is a real person underneath all the sparkles and the wigs…”
However, not many people agreed with Carpenter’s speech. Furthermore, it began a new hate wave that came towards the American pop star. On the other hand, some fans defend her great ability onstage.
“I’ve gotta stop listening to yall dooming. I was expecting to hate it but this was a pretty good episode! Both of Sabrina’s musical performances really stood out. People usually struggle with sound on this set but she killed it, and the creativity in the sets and choreography was way beyond what most people do for a single SNL performance. Also, if she wasn’t a pop star, I think Sabrina could slide right in as one of the better cast members on SNL right now. She’s a total natural. With all that said, I do think the cast could be improved a lot, and I hope they hear that pretty ubiquitous feedback.” Said a fan on a Reddit forum about the performance.
In total, Carpenter did a few sketches on the show. Some of the most memorable ones were about Domingo’s past sketch, a guy’s podcast and a selling commercial. Sabrina also received backlash over her controversial performance of Nobody’s Son where she wore a sequined kimono-esque top.
