How Did Sabrina Carpenter Get Famous? Inside Her Rise To Stardom

27 June 2024, 13:05 | Updated: 27 June 2024, 13:08

Sabrina Carpenter rose to fame after entering The Miley Cyrus Project
Sabrina Carpenter rose to fame after entering The Miley Cyrus Project. Picture: Getty

By Kathryn Knight

Here’s what you need to know about Sabrina Carpenter’s rise to stardom, including how she got famous and where she learnt to sing.

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Sabrina Carpenter became a household name in the past year after joining none other than Taylor Swift on The Eras Tour, releasing three chart-smashing singles, ‘Feather’, ‘Espresso’ and ‘Please Please Please’, performing at Coachella and making her Summertime Ball debut.

She also hosted and performed on SNL and bagged herself a new boyfriend in the form of Saltburn star Barry Keoghan.

Her pictures are all over your Instagram and TikTok feeds and now it’s time to get to know Sabrina a little better, including how she got famous, where she got started and where she learnt to sing.

Sabrina Carpenter at Vogue World in Paris
Sabrina Carpenter at Vogue World in Paris. Picture: Getty

How did Sabrina Carpenter get famous?

Sabrina, who’s from Pennsylvania, had talent from an early age and as a child she posted YouTube videos of her singing as well as videos of her larking about with her friends, many of which have resurfaced recently and are hilarious and too relatable.

She was eventually noticed by the Disney Channel, signing a five-album deal at the same time she signed up for TV series Girl Meets World, where she played Maya.

She went on to release albums ‘Eyes Wide Open’, ‘EVOLution’, ‘Singular: Act I’, ‘Singular Act II’ and ‘Emails I Can’t Send’, which was her first album released under Island Records.

Sabrina Carpenter is about to release her sixth studio album
Sabrina Carpenter is about to release her sixth studio album. Picture: Getty

How did Sabrina Carpenter get started?

After gaining popularity on YouTube with her singing videos she entered The Miley Cyrus Project, a competition which ran on Miley Cyrus’ YouTube channel and led to her being discovered by the Disney Channel after placing third out of 10,000 entries.

“That was the start of everything musically for me,” she said in 2015. “I learned a lot about entertaining and sharing stories through your voice.”

After that, Sabrina started out as a voice actor and eventually landed a starring role in Girl Meets World at age 14. At the same time, she also signed a five-album deal with Disney’s Hollywood Records which is who she released the albums listed above via.

In January 2021, she announced she had signed with Universal Music Group’s Island Records, and the first single she released under the label was ‘Skin’, which is thought to be her song in response to Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘Drivers Licence’ which is believed to refer to Sabrina and their "love triangle" with fellow Disney alumnus Joshua Bassett.

Sabrina Carpenter is dating Barry Keoghan
Sabrina Carpenter is dating Barry Keoghan. Picture: Getty

In 2022 she released ‘Emails I Can’t Send’ and this year she’s releasing ‘Short n’ Sweet’, which comes out on 23rd August, which she told Cosmopolitan she’s been ‘working on for a minute’.

She told them: "I’m starting to feel like I’ve outgrown the songs I’m singing, which is always an exciting feeling because I think that means the next chapter is right around the corner."

Sabrina Carpenter Answers Fans Emails

Where did Sabrina Carpenter learn to sing?

Sabrina started singing lessons when she was a child in school, in her hometown of Lehigh, Pennsylvania, learning from the same teacher who taught her mum several years earlier.

After finding her voice she was keen to share it with the world, which is when she set up her YouTube channel singing covers of songs by artists like Adele, Carrie Underwood and Christina Aguilera. She also covered Taylor Swift, who she was and still is a huge fan of, so it was a full circle moment when she opened for the 14-time Grammy-award winner on The Eras Tour.

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