Sabrina Carpenter knows a thing or two about getting trapped in a bit. For a long time after releasing her album Emails I Can’t Send, she had to write a new, naughty outro to her song “Nonsense” every time she performed it. She retired the bit for her Short N’ Sweet tour, but another longstanding Carpenter tradition remains: the demise of men in her music videos. “In the Sabrina cinematic universe, women never die. Men unfortunately suffer most of the loss,” she previously explained. That remains true in the video for “Tears,” the second single off her newly released album Man’s Best Friend.
But before the murder, Carpenter is lured into a disco-fevered, Rocky Horror Picture Show-inspired haunted house by none other than Colman Domingo. “About to break the internet. Tears,” Domingo posted to Twitter/X before the video release, before referencing a slogan in support of transgender women: “Protect all the Dolls.” In the clip, Domingo dances in drag while Carpenter sings the kind of silly-but-sexy lyrics she’s become known for (“I get wet at the thought of you being a responsible guy”). Describing the album overall, Carpenter wrote on Instagram, “It’s a real party for heartbreak, a celebration of disappointment! It’s laughing at yourself and your poor choices as everything is falling apart, it’s wondering how loyalty and love always gets you back to third wheeling, spoken sarcastically like a true 25 year old !”
As for the death of her latest music video star, he almost survives, unlike the guy from “Manchild” or “Taste” or “Espresso” or any of the men in “Feather.” “You died earlier I thought,” Carpenter complains when her “Tears”man drags himself out of a car wreck. “It’s a thing, someone has to die every video. Sorry. We’ll always remember you though,” she says before assassinating him with a stiletto. “He was a nice one too,” she remarks, but unfortunately for the men of the Sabrina cinematic universe, “You have to give the people what they want!”