Sabrina Carpenter‘s getting backlash for the cover of her new album Man’s Best Friend, which some feel is degrading to women. But a Rock & Roll Hall of Famer who faced similar controversy 50 years ago thinks everyone should just calm down.
Back in 1975, Carly Simon released Playing Possum, whose cover shows her on her knees, her fists clenched, her mouth open, wearing nothing but a black negligee and black boots. The pose was captured by photographer Norman Seef after Simon ran out of a dressing room and began dancing to a song she loved.
“That’s when Norman took that picture, after I landed in that pose,” she tells Rolling Stone. “It wasn’t done on purpose.” But it was considered so provocative that a major department store chain almost refused to sell it, and Simon says even her mother was horrified.
That’s why Simon is unbothered by Sabrina’s album cover. “She’s not doing anything outrageous,” she tells Rolling Stone. “It seems tame. There have been far flashier covers … so I don’t know why she’s getting such flak.”
So how should Sabrina handle the controversy? “Well, any press is good press, so I wouldn’t worry about the press,” says Carly. “And as far as her being salacious, I certainly don’t think it’s that.”
“I mean, look at all of the people who dress much more scantily. She’s so beautiful, and she should be proud of herself and the way she looks,” she added.
But she does have one issue with the image, which shows Sabrina on her hands and knees next to a man, touching his knee as he grabs a handful of her hair.
“I thought it was going over the line a little bit, touching the man’s knee,” she laughs. “I thought, she didn’t have to do that.”
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