Overvew

The Sabrina Carpenter Man's Best Friend Album Cover Controversy refers to discourse surrounding the cover of pop artist Sabrina Carpenter's 2025 album Man's Best Friend, which shows her on her hands and knees in front of a man in a suit who is holding her hair like a leash. Carpenter announced the album and shared the art on social media on June 11th, 2025, and it quickly inspired backlash, with some seeing the cover as anti-feminist, regressive and an attempt to appeal to the "male gaze." Others defended it as satirical and suggested people were making too big a deal out of it. Some also compared the album cover to the lyrical content of her songs, which regularly features jabs at men and their behavior towards women.

Background

On June 11th, 2025, pop artist Sabrina Carpenter announced the release of her new album Man's Best Friend on X / Twitter,^[1] writing, "My new album, 'Man’s Best Friend' 🐾 is out on August 29, 2025. i can’t wait for it to be yours x," garnering over 235,000 likes and 72,000 reposts in a day.

The post shares two photos. One is a photograph of Sabrina Carpenter on her hands and knees at a man's knee, who is holding her hair in his hand, similarly to a dog leash. The second is a photo of a dog's collar with "Man's Best Friend" engraved on it. The former photo is the album's cover, as evidenced by the pre-orders for the album on her website.^[2]

Online Reactions

The album artwork inspired controversy on social media as people debated whether or not it was regressive from a feminist standpoint.

On June 11th, 2025, the album cover was shared on the /r/popculturechat^[3] subreddit, garnering over 19,000 upvotes and 3,200 comments in a day. Many of the top comments share negative feelings towards the artwork, with a comment by Redditor u/BoredCrusader1899 with over 8,000 upvotes reading, "Girl, get up. Have some respect for yourself 😩."

That same day, TikToker^[4] @elismutny posted a video criticizing the album cover, joking that it appeals to the "male gaze" and not the "male gays," garnering over 2.2 million views in a day.

Also on June 11th, X^[5] user @savingrace0 made a post defending the album cover, writing, "maybe this is a bad take but I fear we have 'stop doing things for the male gaze'd ourselves back into expecting women to be modest and shaming them otherwise, and it's Strange," continuing in a comment, "like idk maybe it's not about the male gaze maybe she's just having fun. is it that deep? maybe. do I sound stupid? also maybe," garnering over 54,000 likes in a day.

On the same day, TikToker^[6] @niccoleeolee posted a video set to Sabrina Carpenter's single for the album, "Manchild," captioned, "Sabrina's new album cover must be rage bait because how are you gonna write a song about men treating you badly then your album cover is a man dragging you across the floor by your hair HUH," garnering over 900,000 views in a day.

Later on June 11th, 2025, X^[7] user @wickednewshub made a post suggesting the album cover is satirical, writing, "for those of you who may lack critical thinking skills, the cover is clearly satirical with a deeper meaning, portraying how the public views her, believing she is just for the male gaze," garnering over 18,000 likes and 2,500 reposts in a day.

Spinal Tap Smell The Glove Comparisons

Amid the viral debate in mid-June 2025 surrounding Sabrina Carpenter's Man's Best Friend, many online also began drawing comparisons between the contentious album artwork and the cover of English heavy metal band Spinal Tap's Smell The Glove.

For example, on June 12th, 2025, Redditor artbasil made a video post to the subreddit /r/Fauxmoi^[8] discussing the references and a clip from the movie about the album, receiving over 2,900 upvotes and 300 comments in nine hours.

That same day, Redditor EyeDecay_IDK posted a They're The Same Picture meme to the subreddit /r/MetalMemes^[9] comparing the two album covers, receiving over 280 upvotes and 40 comments in three hours.

Search Interest

External References