Upon the release of new album Man’s Best Friend, Sabrina Carpenter is opening up about her past relationship with the person who just might have inspired some of the songs: Barry Keoghan.
More specifically, the pop star addressed whether she feels responsible at all for the hate the Irish actor received following their breakup. During an interview on CBS Mornings on Friday (Aug. 29), Gayle King broached the subject by bringing up Keoghan by name and saying, “He got a lot of backlash because your fans are very loyal.”
“Correct,” Carpenter replied frankly, to which King followed up with, “Did you feel badly when he was going through that?”
“You know what’s funny … I feel pretty transparent going into any of my relationships that I write songs,” the Grammy winner explained. “And I think they’re just as down for it. I think also most of the time, they’ve been pretty flattered when they get a song written about them, good or bad.”
“I think they’re just excited to get a shout-out,” she added. “I’m not scared of men in that sense. I am scared of men sometimes, but I’m not scared in that sense. I think I will attract exactly who I’m supposed to attract.”
The interview comes about nine months after Keoghan and Carpenter split after a year of dating, during which time the actor appeared in the musician’s video for Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit “Please Please Please.” “They are both young and career-focused, so they’ve decided to take a break,” a rep told People at the time.
Soon afterward, Keoghan deleted his Instagram because his name had “been dragged across the internet” in lieu of his breakup from the Girl Meets World alum. “It’s gettin to a place where there are too many lines being crossed,” he had explained at the time. “Absolute lies, hatred, disgusting commentary about my appearance, character, how I am as a parent and every other inhumane thing you can imagine.”
Months later, Carpenter seemingly addresses the split on a few cheeky lyrics on Man’s Best Friend, which dropped Friday. On lead single “Manchild,” she roasts an ex partner for letting her down in a variety of ways, and on “We Almost Broke Up Again Last Night,” she sings, “You say we’re drifting apart/ I said, ‘Yeah, I f–king know.’”
But while Carpenter might not have found the one in Keoghan, she is over the moon for her friend Taylor Swift — whose upcoming album The Life of a Showgirl features Carpenter on its title track — following news that the Eras Tour headliner is engaged to Travis Kelce.
“I’m so happy for them,” she cheered on CBS Mornings. “I’ve been looking up to [Taylor] since I was — I remember the first time I heard a song by her. I was 8 years old on the school bus, and my life was changed.”
Watch the full interview below.
