Sabrina Carpenter Says a ‘Newer Heartbreak Experience’ Inspired ‘Man’s Best Friend’

Sabrina Carpenter opened up about how a breakup influenced Man’s Best Friend.

In a Wednesday, Sept. 3 interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1, the pop star revealed how a “newer heartbreak experience” inspired her seventh studio album.

“I think I came out of a sad situation, a lot less bitter than I intended or expected to,” said Carpenter, 26. “With a little bit more of the like, you know what? There’s two people involved, and this is part of growing up.”

She noted that she doesn’t “want to be enemies with people that I loved.”

“I think obviously it depends on what happens and what goes down and how much you feel like you can truly trust that person,” said Carpenter. “But I do, I feel like it is one of those situations where even the album starting with ‘Oh, boy’ was sort of a… It’s an eye roll to yourself being like, here we go again.”

The “Espresso” hitmaker said that the music “feels very reflective of this time in my life where you don’t really have a lot of time to sort of mope and weep.”

“You kind of just got to get back out there, and not even in a dating way, not even in a romantic way, but just get back out there in terms of if you’re staying inside and you’re thinking about how everything’s going wrong, everything’s going to go wrong and you’re going to be inside,” she said.

For Carpenter, it’s about shifting her “mindset” to recognize that she’s not “damaged” even if she’s been “hurt.”

“I think this one was a newer heartbreak experience for me,” she said.

Carpenter added that, as a result, Man’s Best Friend “slowly came out of nowhere.”

While Carpenter didn’t name anyone specific, the “House Tour” singer and Barry Keoghan first sparked dating rumors in late 2023. The pair made their red carpet debut in March 2024 at the Vanity Fair Oscars afterparty before attending the Met Gala together in May of that same year.

In December 2024, a source told PEOPLE that Carpenter and Keoghan “decided to take a break” from their romance.

Carpenter was romantically linked to singers Joshua Bassett and Shawn Mendes before her “on and off” relationship with the Saltburn star, 32.