Sabrina Carpenter under fire for new album cover: ‘Literally copied and pasted’

Sabrina Carpenter has been called out for her new album cover, with several people accusing her of taking a little too much inspiration from a years-old photo shoot in a French magazine.

On June 3, the 25-year-old pop star shared on social media that her new album, Short n’ Sweet, would be released on August 23. Alongside the announcement, she included a picture of the cover art, which shows her looking over her bare shoulder that’s been marked with a lipstick kiss.

Social media users pointed out that Carpenter’s photo bears an undeniable resemblance to a spread featuring French model Tiffany Collier, in which she is also looking over her bare shoulder with the same lipstick kiss stamp.

Collier had originally posted the image on Instagram in Feburary 2018, writing: “Happy Valentine’s Day.” She had also tagged the photographer Bruno Juminer.

While the “Espresso” singer’s post has garnered a lot of excitement from fans, there have also been a number of people criticizing Carpenter for not giving credit to the original photo.

“Just literally copied and pasted the inspo,” one person tweeted.

“The problem isn’t that Sabrina took inspo from some french Cosmo shoot (that’s normal), the problem is it lacks all the emotion of the original,” another argued. “The girl on the left actually looks outside – shadows off her bangs, sultry squint, sunkissed. Sabrina is serving [Instagram] face in a studio!”

But others came to Carpenter’s defense. “Her new era is inspired by a retro summer aesthetic and that’s inspiration from that time and era she never claimed to have been the original creator of that photo,” one said.

“It’s complicated but legally it’s just inspiration cause anyone can do this,” another commented. “But if she were to take the original and just put it as her cover then that’d be considered stolen.”

The Independent has contacted Carpenter’s representative for comment.

Carpenter’s forthcoming album, Short n’ Sweet, will be her sixth studio record. In April, the singer released the record’s lead single, “Espresso,” which has topped the UK music charts for five consecutive weeks.

The new album comes two years after her last record, emails i can’t send, which includes her other top hits “Feather” and “Nonsense.”

Last month, Carpenter made her Saturday Night Live debut as the evening’s musical guest. Her performance of “Nonsense” left viewers shocked after she made a “hilarious” lyric change.