UPDATE 4/11/26 at 5:32 p.m. ET— Sabrina Carpenter addressed the backlash to her 2026 Coachella set, where she called a fan’s cultural chant “weird.”
“My apologies I didn’t see this person with my eyes and couldn’t hear clearly,” Carpenter wrote via X on Saturday, April 11. “My response was pure confusion, sarcasm and never ailing intended. Could have handled it higher! Now I do know what a Zaghrouta is! I welcome all cheers and yodels from here on out.”
Original story continues below:
While headlining the 2026 Coachella Music & Arts Festival, singer Sabrina Carpenter sparked backlash when she confused a fan’s cultural cry for a “weird” yodel.
In the course of Carpenter’s Friday, April 11, set, one fan let loose a zaghrouta chant. (A zaghrouta cheer is usually bellowed by women in Arab-speaking communities to precise overwhelming joy.) Carpenter, 26, confused the mantra for a “yodel.”
“Is that what you’re doing? I don’t prefer it,” Carpenter said, based on social media footage. After the fan attempted to elucidate the zaghrouta, the singer added, “That’s your culture? Yodeling? Is that this Burning Man? That is weird.”
Following Carpenter’s set, several social media users condemned the pop star’s now-viral response.
“Sabrina saying that she doesn’t like a cultural arabic cheer. That is so insensitive and islamophobic,” one social media user wrote via X on Friday. “I’m very disenchanted in her.”
One other fan tweeted, “Sabrina Carpenter mocking a zaghrouta as ‘yodeling’ after being educated on its culture is so nasty. Being uncultured and proud is definitely a disease. The mean girl act isn’t cute anymore, it’s just xenophobic. She’s done.”
Carpenter has not publicly addressed the backlash. Us Weekly has reached out to reps for the Grammy winner for comment.
Carpenter, who made her Coachella debut in 2024, isn’t any stranger to controversy. Her most up-to-date album, Man’s Best Friend, raised eyebrows for its hypersexualized lyrics and video concepts. Carpenter, nevertheless, has been unbothered by the haters.
“I believe it wouldn’t matter a lot if I wasn’t a childhood figure for some people,” she told Variety in December 2025, referring to her childhood fame acting on Disney Channel. “I can also’t really help that. It’s not my fault that I got a job once I was 12 and also you won’t let me evolve.”
She continued, “I all the time thought, ‘Once I grow up, then I get to embrace my sexuality more. I don’t even know what which means yet!’ I don’t think they do. I wish I’d had more open conversations about all of it once I was younger, but people feel too scared to discuss it.”
Carpenter performed songs from Man’s Best Friend and her previous album, Short ‘N Sweet, during her Friday set.
“It’s probably the most ambitious show I’ve ever done,” Carpenter told Perfect magazine earlier this month, teasing her Coachella set. “It’s probably probably the most time I’ve ever had to truly just sit down and discuss a show as I’m constructing it. More often than not, you’re really quickly thrust into physical rehearsals, but this time around we began this process around seven months ago. So it’s been a protracted journey. It’ll be very special.”