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Sabrina Carpenter didn’t mince her words while speaking at the MTV Video Music Awards.
While accepting the award for Best Album at the 2025 MTV VMAs for her 2024 album Short n’ Sweet, the “Espresso” singer dropped an F-bomb while mentioning past criticism of her latest album Man’s Best Friend.
Carpenter, 26, began her speech thanking the VMAs and expressing her appreciation to her fans for listening to her music. “I really don’t take for granted when you guys take the time out of your lives to listen to an album, and if I’m lucky enough that that is my album, I am so grateful.”
“Whether that be Short n’ Sweet, this album, or whether that be Man’s Best Friend, my new album, or whether it be one of my 29 before that,” she quipped.
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“I’m just the luckiest girl in the world, and I do want to say to my incredible cast and dancers and my queens on stage. And my queens on stage with me tonight,” said Carpenter.
She also addressed how often the world can be “full of criticism” for her work and how grateful she is for the opportunity to be a musician.
“This world, as we all know, can be so full of criticism and discrimination and negativity. So to get to be a part of something so often, more than not, that is something that can bring you light, make you smile, make you dance and make you feel like the world is your f—— oyster, I am so grateful, so grateful to do that.”
“So thanks, everyone here. But most importantly, my fans are just, you’ve been there for me. So thank you. And the last thing I’ll say is every artist here tonight that is nominated, that’s performing, that is just standing here looking amazing, you all mean so much to me and have inspired me so much,” said Carpenter.
She concluded, “So thanks for letting me be in this room with you. I love you all very much.”
In late August, Carpenter addressed the criticism surrounding her album Man’s Best Friend during an interview with Gayle King for CBS Mornings.
Some have spoken out about her album cover, which features her crawling on the floor with a man holding her hair, calling it “dehumanizing for women” and “degrading.”
King, 70, called her lyrics “unapologetic” but noted that “there are some people that would listen to the music and they’d be clutching their pearls.” Carpenter responded: “Correct.”
“The album is not for any pearl-clutchers,” she said, before adding: “No, but I also think that even pearl-clutchers can listen to an album like that in their own solitude and find something that makes them smirk and chuckle to themselves….”
The veteran journalist also commended Carpenter for being “sexual,” “powerful” and “vulnerable” with her music. “That’s the thing, is sometimes people hear the lyrics that are really bold or they go, ‘I don’t want to sing this in front of other people.’ It’s like it’s almost too … it’s TMI,” Carpenter replied.
“But I think about being at a concert with, you know, however many young women I see in the front row that are screaming at the top of their lungs with their best friends. And you can go like, ‘Oh, we can all sigh of relief, like, ‘This is just fun.’ And that’s all it has to be.”
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The 2025 MTV VMAs air live from New York’s UBS Arena on Sunday, Sept. 7 at 8 p.m. ET on CBS and MTV. The ceremony will also stream on Paramount+.
