Sabrina Carpenter performed her new single, “Tears,” for the first time at the 2025 MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday, September 7.
The pop star, 26, took the stage at UBS Arena in Elmont, New York, wearing a fringe white top and black leggings alongside a slew of drag queens, who held up signs supporting trans equality.
Midway through, Carpenter stripped down to a sparkly bra and danced in the rain, a nod to the song’s risqué lyric, “I get wet at the thought of you.” (Earlier in the evening, she walked the red carpet in a red lace dress.)
Carpenter was nominated for nine awards this year, including Video of the Year for “Manchild,” Best Pop Artist and Best Album for 2024’s Short n’ Sweet.
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The singer’s appearance at Sunday’s show came just over a week after she released her seventh album, Man’s Best Friend, on which she reunited with producers Jack Antonoff and John Ryan and songwriter Amy Allen.
“It felt like a band in a lot of ways,” she told Gayle King on CBS Mornings on August 29 of returning to the studio with her frequent collaborators. “Like, someone’s on the drums, and someone’s over here playing the synth, and then we’re on the tambourine … then I’m cutting vocals.”
Following the album’s release, fans speculated that Carpenter subtly shouts out her exes Shawn Mendes, Barry Keoghan, Joshua Bassett and Dylan O’Brien in the song “Go Go Juice” by using names that rhyme with theirs.
However, the former Disney Channel star declined to confirm whether any of the four men served as her muses, telling King, “It’s more fun for people to picture [someone] in their head than the person I picture in my head, I think.”
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That said, Carpenter did acknowledge that her love life often inspires her music, saying, “I feel pretty transparent going into any of my relationships that I write songs, and I think they’re just as down for it. … Most of the time, they’ve been pretty flattered … when they get a song written about them — good or bad.”
The Girl Meets World alum made her VMA debut last year when she performed a medley of her Short n’ Sweet hits “Please Please Please,” “Taste” and “Espresso,” the last of which went on to win Song of the Year during the ceremony.
“I’ve literally never won one of these. This is really special,” she said during her acceptance speech before thanking “the best fans in the world” in addition to her family, managers and pets.
This year’s performers also included top nominee Lady Gaga as well as honorees Mariah Carey, Busta Rhymes and Ricky Martin.
