It is that time of year again: Coachella! And this year, the iconic musical festival has some controversy brewing with none other than pop darling Sabrina Carpenter!
The 26-year-old singer headlined Coachella for the first time in Indio, California, on Friday night, and she sparked backlash for her reaction to a fan’s cultural Arabic cheer, which is typically a high-pitched tongue trill used in celebration. A video of the incident posted on X (Twitter) showed Sabrina sitting at her piano onstage when she suddenly heard from someone in the crowd what sounded like an ululation. Looking confused, the House Tour artist said:
“Is that what you’re doing?”
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Someone from the crowd explained that “it’s Arab,” specifically “an Arab call.” To which Sabrina replied:
“I don’t like it.”
Oh, yikes! The fan fired back that it is “part of [their] culture” and meant as a “call” for “celebration.” Whether the Grammy winner heard her or not is unclear. And honestly, it can be challenging for artists to hear everything onstage. But she still responded while looking puzzled:
“That’s your culture, yodeling? Is this Burning Man? What’s going on? This is weird.”
Oof. Watch the viral clip (below):
sabrina carpenter is so ignorant, someone was doing a zaghroot (an arab cheer) and she called it yodelling and disrespectfully dismissed the fact that it was apart of the person’a culture saying “she doesn’t like it” ???? pic.twitter.com/aT8aXoccu1
— ⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟ (@hoodveil) April 11, 2026
Not good, girl…
What might have seemed like an innocent fan interaction to her turned into a huge controversy online! People immediately stormed social media to slam Sabrina after the comments, saying:
“The way Sabrina doubled down and decided to continue to be ignorant even after it was clarified yodeling is part of that person’s culture says a lot about her.”
“Did Sabrina Carpenter just call that girl’s culture weird and creepy?”
“She’s so odd for this, calling someone’s culture weird”
“i love sabrina but i’m also arab. nobody is saying u need to know every culture, but she just kept being ignorant after getting a whole ass explanation?? mind u ‘its my culture’ should’ve been enough. theres no harm in holding your faves accountable but most of her fans are white”
“I think she genuinely wasn’t coming from a bad place but when someone says ‘that’s my culture’ put ur PR training to use and DONT DOUBLE DOWN. I didn’t know that culture either but I wouldn’t double down if someone said that was their culture”
“being a fan of an artist also means recognizing when they’re wrong. here sabrina totally f**ked up and there’s no amount of mental gymnastics in the world to defend it. i really hope she comes out and apologizes later, cuz it was super disrespectful of her”
Other fans defended Sabrina, though! They clapped back amid the backlash:
“She clearly could not hear the girl speaking. You have to remember she’s all the way up on stage. We can hear the audience much better. She just heard some girl yodeling and yelling about how it’s her culture like it’s not that serious”
“Please don’t let this become a thing, she really couldn’t hear what was happening and was not trying to offend anyone! She had a lot going on at the moment.”
It’s possible, as we said, Sabrina couldn’t hear everything the fan was saying in the crowd! Who knows! At this time, Sabrina hasn’t addressed the controversy. But what are YOUR thoughts, Perezcious readers? Sound off in the comments (below)!
[Image via MEGA/WENN, Sabrina Carpenter/YouTube]
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