Bucks County-raised Sabrina Carpenter will perform on the season finale of ‘Saturday Night Live’
The show's pairing of the 'Espresso' singer with Taylor Swift's ex Jake Gyllenhaal has created a buzz among Swifties.
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From Quakertown to 30 Rock: Bucks County-raised pop singer Sabrina Carpenter is musical guest on this week’s season finale of Saturday Night Live, appearing with guest host Jake Gyllenhaal.
It’s a natural step for Carpenter, whose star is ascendent thanks to “Espresso,” the frothy, nonsensical hit single that looks to have the legs to become a song-of-the-summer contender.
Above bubbly electro beats, Carpenter sings of being every bit as addictive as caffeine: “Too bad your ex don’t do it for ya/ Walked in and dream came trued it for ya,” she sings. “I know I Mountain Dew it for ya,/ That morning coffee, I brewed it for ya,” before adding “That’s that me, espresso.”
At 25, Carpenter is a showbiz veteran. She was born in Quakertown and grew up in nearby East Greenville, and made her acting debut in 2011 in an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit in 2011. From 2014 to 2017, she was featured on the Disney Channel’s Girl Meets World. Nancy Cartwright, who is the voice of Bart Simpson on the Simpsons, is her aunt.
Her first teen-pop album, Eyes Wide Open came out in 2015, and she began to broaden her range musically and thematically with 2022′s Emails I Can’t Send, which was structured as notes to herself that are too personal to share.
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Carpenter was the opening act on Taylor Swift’s Era Tour stops in Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Australia and Singapore. This has raised her profile significantly among Swifties, many of whom have expressed concern online about Carpenter appearing on SNL with Gyllenhaal.
He briefly dated Swift and is widely believed to be the ex-boyfriend in “All Too Well,” the breakup song featuring a never-returned scarf that Swift performed in an epic 10 minute version on SNL in 2021. When Carpenter announced she was going to be on the show on her Instagram, commenters wondered “who paired her up with HIM” and predicted “she’s gonna get that scarf back.”
Last month, Carpenter performed at the Coachella Festival in California and added a freestyle rap reference to her song “Nonsense,” in reference to boyfriend, Saltburn actor Barry Keoghan. This week, she released a video for “Espresso” directed by Dave Meyers which features her and a squad of friends being ogled at by retro-surfer dudes.