Sabrina Carpenter Faces Backlash Over Use of 'Gay' in New Song

Sabrina Carpenter has become the latest pop star to face blowback over the way in which she used "gay" in one of her lyrics.

Like Taylor Swift and other pop stars before her, Carpenter has been getting called out online for a bonus track called "Busy Woman" off her new album "Short N Sweet."

On the track, fans are fretting over a lyric that says, "If you don't want me, I'll just deem you gay."

It's an eyebrow raising lyric, and fearing this kind of sentiment feels a bit tiresome from a gay man's perspective. Not surprisingly, the lyric is getting dragged online, with some comparing it to Taylor Swift and her controversial song "Picture to Burn" from her debut album. On that song, Taylor Swift originally said "So go and tell your friends that I'm obsessive and crazy, that's fine I'll tell mine you're gay." Swift has subsequently updated those lyrics to say "You won't mind if I say", taking out the gay lyric.

When it got revealed that Sabrina Carpenter had put the gay lyric in "Busy Woman," it's received a divided response.

"History repeats itself," wrote one commentator on X, posting a comparison to Swift's previously lyrics in which she sings: "So go and tell your friends that I'm obsessive and crazy. That's fine I'll tell mine that you're gay!"

The implication was that Swift, and now Carpenter, are calling their crushes "gay" just because they aren't interested.

"Weird thing to say," wrote another social media commenter.

Another added, "Anybody else noticed that these new pop girlies are using the word gay in nearly all their songs for clout ?? It's getting boring."

Indeed.

On another note, and in another song, Carpenter is getting rave reviews for sampling the old Grindr notification– not the new grunt version for the U.S. Open.