Sabrina Carpenter says she was ‘led astray’ during early career in candid new interview
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Sabrina Carpenter is relishing in the success of her latest studio album, Short n’ Sweet, and the three singles that helped take her to the top of the charts.
While she’s still young at 25, her journey has been by no means an overnight success, considering she’s now released six albums since 2015, while also pushing forward with her acting career.
In a new interview with Time magazine, as part of the outlet’s TIME100 Next list which recognizes 100 emerging leaders who are shaping the future of the world, the Quakertown, Pennsylvania native shared about her sometimes rocky road after signing a record deal at 12 with Disney’s Hollywood Records.
‘For a long time, I was constantly guided and misguided,’ Carpenter said, before adding, ‘I’m so grateful for all of those times where I was led astray, because now I’m a lot more equipped going into situations where I have to trust my own instincts.’
It would take another year before she got her big break on the acting side of her career when she landed the role of Maya Hart in Girl Meets World (2014-2017), a reboot of the classic 1990s series Boy Meets World.
The 2024 TIME100 Next list is live now on Time.com and the new issue will hit newsstands on Friday, October 4.
As part of Time’s Next List, the singer-songwriter and actress strikes a pose of in a red shorts bodysuit with a matching bow tie for a train for her cover photo.
She also slipped into a black-and-white checkered dress with black lace trim for the Time piece, with her blonde locks flowing down long with extra volume and bangs for both images.
Carpenter released four studio albums with the Disney-owned Hollywood Records label between 2015 and 2019, as continued to act in an array of Disney show and films like Adventures In Babysitting (2016), as well as The Hate U Give (2018), and Tall Girl (2019) and The Short History of the Long Road (2019).
But yet, she still couldn’t break into the mainstream as a musical artist, but that seemed to start to change with her move to Island Records in 2021, which led to the release of the stand alone single Skin, which marked her first entry into the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.
From there, she dropped her first album, Emails I Can’t Send (2022), with her new Island Records label the following year as part of the promotion, including five singles: Skinny Dipping, Fast Times, Vicious, Because I Liked A Boy, and Nonsense.
After receiving some good reviews from critics the album charted in the top 30 in the U.S., Argentina, Australia, Ireland, the Netherlands, and New Zealand.
‘My last album was f**king sad, straight up,” Carpenter said of Emails I Can’t Send, which has been described as a more mature version of her music.
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‘For a long time, I was constantly guided and misguided,’ Carpenter said during Time interview. ‘I’m so grateful for all of those times where I was led astray, because now I’m a lot more equipped going into situations where I have to trust my own instincts; she is pictured on her cover for the Time Next 100 list
The Espresso star also wore a black-and-white checkered dress with black lace trim for the Time photoshoot, with her blonde locks flowing down long with bangs
Sabrina Carpenter wears variety of outfits during her tour
Sabrina Carpenter, 25, is among the high-profile people to make it to TIME magazine’s 2024 Next List, which celebrates ‘100 emerging leaders who are shaping the future’
The success she reaped from all her hard work writing, recording, and performing really seemed to pay off with the response to her most recent album: Short n’ Sweet (2024).
In a reference to the emotional impact of Carpenter’s shortest romantic relationships, as well as her short stature and the album’s brief runtime, Carpenter has called this her second ‘big girl’ album, following its release August 23.
With the help of three singles, it has since topped the record charts in 18 countries including the U.S., Australia, and France.
Espresso marked Carpenter’s first number-one song on the UK Singles Chart, while Please Please Please now has the distinction of being her first number-one song on the US Billboard Hot 100.
The album eventually made its way to number one on the Billboard 200 and has since been certified platinum by the Recording Industry Of America (RIAA), giving her that commercial success exposure she had been working towards for so many years.
Jack Antonoff, who many fans know as Taylor Swift’s collaborator, has seen her progression while working with Carpenter on several new songs from Short n’ Sweet.
‘I look at all Sabrina’s work, and she’s just crystallized more and more,’ the musician and producer told Time. ‘I guess the lesson there is there was nothing wrong. It was just about staying the course. That’s really what it is to be an artist.’
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Carpenter has seen her star rise with the success of her sixth studio album, Short n’ Sweet, since it was released on August 23, that was helped with her three singles Espresso, Please Please Please and Taste
‘There were so many things I dreamt of doing as a little girl I got to do this year that felt like such a cool, sweet, little bucket-list moment for my younger self,’ she said of her breakout as an artist. ‘I literally threw up when I found out about SNL. Not to be graphic.’
Her performance at the MTV VMAs in New York in September was another dream moment realized for Carpenter on her bucket list.
‘I grew up watching those performances and being like, I want to do that. But then it all just seemed so — not even out of reach, just like I had a different plan in my head of when it was all supposed to happen,’ she explained.
But after all that time struggling to break into the pop culture lexicon, the On My Way star matured as an persona and artist to the point that she now sees the perks to how it all unfolded.
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Carpenter says she began to realize some of things on her dream bucket list this year, such as appear on SNL and perform at the MTV VMAs; the pop star is seen at VMAs
