Everything to Know About Sabrina Carpenter’s Career Trajectory

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Sabrina Carpenter has found recent success through her pop hits like “Espresso” and “Please Please Please” off of her 2024 album Short n’ Sweet.

The musician was also recently in the news following the announcement of her reported separation from Irish actor Barry Keoghan.

In addition to music, she has also been known for other creative endeavors such as acting in movies, TV, and even Broadway. Her wide-spanning acting roles helped carry her to where she is today.

Here is everything to know about Sabrina Carpenter’s career trajectory.

Disney

Sabrina Carpenter joined Disney Channel in 2012 with a role on the animated series Sofia the First. She played a character called Princess Vivian before making her on-screen debut in Girl Meets World in 2014 — a spin-off of the popular ’90s series Boy Meets World. Until 2017, she appeared as the tough girl Maya Hart, the best friend of the show’s main character Riley Matthews (played by Rowan Blanchard).

As Carpenter’s career started taking off, fans unearthed a 2009 audition tape she made as a child for Miley Cyrus‘ singing contest called The Next Miley Cyrus Project. She wound up placing third in the competition, according to Just Jared Jr., which likely put her on Disney’s radar.

Music

Along with Carpenter’s career on Disney Channel, she signed a record deal with Disney‘s Hollywood Records at age 12. Propelled by the success of her 2014 debut single “Can’t Blame a Girl for Trying,” she released an EP under the same title.

Carpenter then dropped her debut album Eyes Wide Open in 2015, which peaked at No. 43 on Billboard’s 200 Albums Chart.

Her sophomore album Evolution climbed a little higher on the charts after Carpenter released it in 2016 which led to her first headlining tour that year. Carpenter would put out a few more albums with Disney’s Hollywood Records, including Singular: Act I (2018) and Singular: Act II (2019).

In 2021, Carpenter signed with Island Records, earning her first Top 40 hit with “Skin.” This led to her putting out the album Emails I Can’t Send in July 2022, which gained traction with tracks like “Nonsense” and “Because I Liked a Boy,” the latter which was about drama between the alleged love triangle between her, Olivia Rodrigo, and Joshua Bassett.

Carpenter continued building her pop star career by dropping the deluxe version of Emails I Can’t Send in March 2023 and announcing she’d be opening for Taylor Swift‘s The Eras Tour.

However, 2024 has arguably been Carpenter’s biggest year so far. She released the lead single “Espresso” in April to weave it into her Coachella performance, becoming her best-charting song. Her sixth album Short n’ Sweet dropped in August 2024 – and is also her first No. 1 record.

Other Acting Roles

In 2011, Carpenter made a guest appearance on NBC‘s Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, marking her first-ever role, even before Disney. Then, in 2012, she had a recurring role on Fox‘s short-lived sitcom The Goodwin Games. She also appeared in films like The Hate U Give (2018) and Netflix‘s Tall Girl (2019).

Broadway

Carpenter made her Broadway debut as Cady Heron in Mean Girls in March 2020, but the production closed shortly after due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Fans had hoped to see the show and Carpenter return, but in January 2021, it was announced that the musical would not be reopening.

“So I rehearsed for about three months in New York and we opened our first two nights and then Covid,” she shared in a CBS Sunday Morning interview from October 2024. “Humbled me. Humbled me very quickly. Like, I was sent home and just was like, ‘Wow. I feel like I could do eight shows a week, you know, and I’ve been training for it and now it’s just silence.'”