Sabrina Carpenter Is So Unbothered By Her Recent Church Scandal

This year’s Halloween season was nostalgic, yet slightly unsettling. Many celebrities transformed into ~the~ campiest characters from the past, including Sabrina Carpenter. Well, somewhat. On Oct. 30, the singer channeled her inner Jennifer’s Body for her “Feather” music video, proving that creepy men are far more scarier than a grisly costume. While that observation stands, her music video certainly frightened one unsuspecting group: the Catholic Church.

On “Feather,” which appeared on her 2022 album emails i can’t send, Carpenter playfully coos about breaking free from a toxic relationship. She added a new twist to the track in the music video, which sees her joyfully executing several obnoxious men.

It’s a rather bloody spectacle — a group of cat-callers are run over by a truck, some gym bros fight to the death for Carpenter’s attention, and a man who took an inappropriate photo of her is beheaded by an elevator shaft. And throughout it all, Carpenter feels “light as a feather.”

Notably, those scenes weren’t the ones that caused an uproar. Part of the video was filmed in Brooklyn’s Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church, where Carpenter wistfully sends off the dead men in pastel coffins. Clad in a black tulle dress, the singer bids them farewell at the altar and in a hearse parked outside of the church.

Within hours of the music video’s release, Carpenter was met with backlash from the very parish she filmed at. Robert J. Brennan, a bishop at the Diocese of Brooklyn, was also quick to make his disappointment known. On Nov. 2, the Brennan denounced the video in a statement to the Catholic News Agency and said he was “appalled” at the content.

He also pointed the blame to the church’s parish, stating they “did not follow diocesan policy” in reviewing scenes and scripts that requested to be filmed on the church’s property.

On Nov. 7, the church’s pastor, Rev. Monsignor Jamie Gigantiello, released an apology letter on Facebook. In the lengthy note, he revealed he granted Carpenter’s team permission to film at their church after doing research on her. Gigantiello also claimed he wasn’t on set during the shoot, and that his parish was unaware of the video’s content when they approved the filming.

“I further affirm that a lapse in judgement such as this will never take place again, as I fully devote my every action to preserving the sanctity of the parish and faith community,” he wrote in the note.

Nearly four weeks after Gigantiello’s letter, he was reportedly stripped of his administrative duties on Nov. 27. Two days later, Carpenter broke her silence and addressed the religious controversy in an interview with Variety. “We got approval in advance,” she said of the video shoot, adding: “and Jesus was a carpenter,” a wink to her fanbase, who call themselves Carpenters.

Brooklyn’s Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church has not addressed Carpenter’s response.