Sabrina Carpenter opens up about the unsolicited advice she received from men at the start of her career


Sabrina Carpenter is undoubtedly one of the women of the moment, with her star rising to even more stratospheric levels in 2024.
Yes, the Espresso singer has been front and centre, opening the Eras tour for Taylor Swift at the start of this year, then going on to play Coachella in April and New York City's Governor's Ball in June. Not to mention, this week the singer released her highly-anticipated Short n' Sweet studio album, already tipped to top the charts.
And from her multiple concerts and number one hits, to her sweet friendship with Taylor Swift and high profile relationship with Saltburn actor Barry Keoghan, she is all anyone can talk about.
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It was the early days of Sabrina Carpenter's career that made headlines this week, with the 25-year-old singer opening up about some unsolicited advice she was given early on.
"I'll put it this way: when I was younger, I was told by a lot of grown men that I needed to pick a genre, stay in that genre, be that genre and do one thing," Carpenter explained in a recent interview with Paper Magazine.
"And there wasn't even a genre that excited me at the time. It was their idea of what I should be," she continued, adding: "I was like 12 or 13."
"So I think secretly my entire life, the goal was to be able to create something that felt multi-genre but also so distinctly myself."
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This is not the first time that the Please Please Please singer has talked about the importance of authenticity.
"I've never paid too much attention to what other people have said or to what other people have tried to make me be," she once famously stated. "I've always just tried to be myself."
Like we needed a reason to love Sabrina Carpenter more.

Jenny Proudfoot is an award-winning journalist, specialising in lifestyle, culture, entertainment, international development and politics. After working at Marie Claire UK for seven years - rising from intern to Features Editor - she is now a freelance contributor to the News and Features section.
In 2021, Jenny was named as a winner on the PPA's '30 under 30' list, and was also listed as a rising star in journalism.
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