Sabrina Carpenter may have never performed at the Grammys before, but her first time taking the awards stage was an elaborate and skilled showcase of the theatrical performance style she perfected on her tour last year.
The curtain lifted on the left side of the stage to reveal Carpenter perched on a grand white staircase and sporting a black-and-white suit and sparkly baton — which she fumblingly dropped on the steps in the first humorous gag of her performance.
She began singing a show tune-style rendition of “Espresso” before faking vocal mistakes and repeatedly restarting one of the lyrics. She then pulled off the suit to reveal a baby blue, bejeweled corset, moved into a tap dance number, and began singing “Please Please Please.”
Now donning a matching shawl, she sang the second number in front of another set piece, designed as a house. The back wall of the house eventually fell through, and Carpenter exclaimed before being whirled into the air by a background dancer. She then finished the performance by jumping back into singing “Espresso.”
Carpenter, a first-time nominee this year, received nominations for album of the year, best new artist, best pop vocal album, song of the year for “Please Please Please” and record of the year for “Espresso.” She already won best pop solo performance for “Espresso” at the pre-television portion of the ceremony.
Carpenter’s “Short n’ Sweet” album is her sixth to date. The first four albums were released through a Disney label before she broke off with “Emails I Can’t Send” in 2022. Carpenter, who started out as a child actor on the Disney Channel show “Girl Meets World,” ascended to pop fame with the hit songs “Espresso” and “Please Please Please” in 2024. The latter reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
“I’m so happy I finished this album before any of the songs came out,” Carpenter told Variety last year. “Not that I think I would have let [the singles’ success] get in my head. But I really do think sometimes you can’t help but write from a different perspective after experiencing certain life events. I’m trying to avoid calling this ‘my dream album,’ because I don’t think I would have been able to dream up this set of songs a couple years ago.”
Carpenter’s accompanying music videos for the album included familiar stars. “Taste” featured Jenna Ortega and Carpenter in a gory rivalry, and “Please Please Please” starred actor Barry Keoghan.
