carpenter

John Carpenter has this one recurring nightmare.

“I’m in a huge, massive town I don’t really know,” he says, “and I’m looking for the movie district. And inevitably all the theaters are closed down. They’re all closed down. That’s what the dream is.”

I’m visiting Carpenter at his longtime production house in Hollywood on one of L.A.’s unjustly sunny October afternoons. A vintage “Halloween” pinball machine and a life-size Nosferatu hover near his easy chair. I tell him I don’t think Freud would have too much trouble interpreting that particular dream.

“No, I know,” he says, laughing. “I don’t have too much trouble with that either.”

Nonetheless, it truly haunts him — “and it has haunted me over the years for many dreams in a row,” he continues. “I’m either with family or a group, and I go off to do something and I get completely lost. [Freud] wouldn’t have too much trouble figuring that out either. I mean, none of this is very mysterious.”

Carpenter is a gruff but approachable 77 these days, his career as a film director receding in the rearview. The last feature he made was 2010’s “The Ward.” His unofficial retirement was partly chosen, partly imposed by a capricious industry. The great movie poster artist Drew Struzan died two days before I visited — Carpenter says he never met Struzan but loved his work, especially his striking painting for the director’s icy 1982 creature movie “The Thing” — and I note how that whole enterprise of selling a movie with a piece of handmade art is a lost one.

“The whole movie business that I knew, that I grew up with, is gone,” he replies. “All gone.”

John Carpenter with John Mulaney, appearing as a part of “Everybody’s in L.A.” at the Sunset Gower Studios in May 2024.

(Adam Rose / Netflix)

It hasn’t, thankfully, made him want to escape from L.A. He still lives here with his wife, Sandy King, who runs the graphic novel imprint Storm King Comics, which Carpenter contributes to. He gamely appeared on John Mulaney’s “Everybody’s in L.A.” series on Netflix and, earlier this year, the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. gave him a Career Achievement Award — a belated lovefest for a veteran who was sidelined after “The Thing” flopped, cast out into indie darkness and was never personally nominated for an Oscar.

The thing that does keep Carpenter busy these days (other than watching Warriors basketball and playing videogames) is the thing that might have an even bigger cultural footprint than his movies: his music. With his adult son Cody and godson, Daniel Davies, Carpenter is once again performing live concerts of his film scores and instrumental albums in a run at downtown’s Belasco this weekend and next.

The synthy, hypnotic scores that became his signature in films like “Halloween” and “Escape from New York” not only outnumber his output as a director — he’s scored movies for several other filmmakers and recently made a handshake deal in public to score Bong Joon Ho’s next feature — but their influence and popularity are much more evident in 2025 than the style of his image-making.

From “Stranger Things” to “F1,” Carpenter’s minimalist palette of retro electronica combined with the groove-based, trancelike ethos of his music (which now includes four “Lost Themes” records) is the coin of the realm so many modern artists are chasing.

Very few composers today are trying to sound like John Williams; many of them want to sound like John Carpenter. The Kentucky-raised skeptic with the long white hair doesn’t believe me when I express this.

“Well, see, I must be stupid,” he says, “because I don’t get it.”

“The true evil in the world comes from people,” says Carpenter. “I know that nature’s pretty rough, but not like men.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Carpenter is quick to put himself down. He always says that he scored his own films because he was the only composer he could afford, and that he only used synths because they were cheap and he couldn’t properly write music for an orchestra. When I tell him that Daniel Wyman, the instrumentalist who helped program and execute the “Halloween” score in 1978, praised Carpenter’s innate knowledge of the “circle of fifths” and secondary dominants — bedrocks of Western musical theory that allowed Carpenter’s scores to keep the tension cooking — he huffs.

“I have no idea what he’s talking about,” Carpenter says, halfway between self-deprecation and something more rascally. “It all comes, probably, from the years I spent in our front room with my father and listening to classical music. I’m sure I’m just digging this s— out.”

Whether by osmosis or genetics or possibly black magic, Carpenter clearly absorbed his powers from his father, Dr. Howard Carpenter, a classically trained violinist and composer. Classical music filled the childhood home in Bowling Green and for young John it was all about “Bach, Bach and Bach. He’s my favorite. I just can’t get enough of Johann there.”

It makes sense. Bach’s music has a circular spell quality and the pipe organ, resounding with reverb in gargantuan cathedrals, was the original synthesizer.

“He’s the Rock of Ages of music,” says Carpenter, who particularly loves the fugue nicknamed “St. Anne” and the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. “Everybody would go back to Mozart or Beethoven. They are astonishing — Beethoven is especially astonishing — but they’re not my style. I don’t feel it like I do with Bach. I immediately got him.”

Carpenter was also a film score freak since Day 1. He cites the early electronic music in 1956’s “Forbidden Planet” and claims Bernard Herrmann and Dimitri Tiomkin as his two all-time favorites. Just listen, he says, to the way Tiomkin’s music transitions from the westerny fanfare under the Winchester Pictures logo to the swirling, menacing orchestral storm that accompanies “The Thing From Another World” title card in that 1951 sci-fi picture that Carpenter remixed as “The Thing.”

“The music is so weird, I cannot follow it,” he says. “But I love it.”

Yet Carpenter feels more personally indebted to rock ‘n’ roll: the Beatles, the Stones, the Doors. He wanted to be a rock star ever since he grew his hair long and bought a guitar in high school. He sang and performed R&B and psychedelic rock for sororities on the Western Kentucky campus as well as on a tour of the U.S. Army bases in Germany. He formed the rock trio Coupe de Villes with his buddies at USC and they made an album and played wrap parties.

He also kept soaking up contemporary influences, listening to Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London” while location scouting for “Halloween.” Peter Fonda later introduced Carpenter to Zevon and he wanted the director to adapt the song into a film that never happened (starring Fonda as the werewolf, but “this time he gets the girl,” Carpenter recalls). In the ’80s he blasted Metallica with his two boys and he still loves Devo.

It’s incredibly rare for a film director to score their own films, rarer still for one to spend decades on stage as a performing musician. The requisite personalities would seem diametrical.

“My dad was a performing musician, so it was just part of the family,” Carpenter says. However, until 2016, when Carpenter first toured with his music, he was consumed with stage fright. “I had an incident when I was in a play in high school,” he says. “I went up and I forgot my lines. Shame descended upon me and I had a tough time. I was scared all the time.”

The director credits his touring drummer, Scott Seiver, for helping him beat it.

“Your adrenaline carries you to another planet when that thing starts,” he sighs with pleasure. “You hear a wall of screaming people. It’s a big time.”

He pushes back against the idea that directors “hide behind the camera.”

“The pressure, that’s the biggest thing,” Carpenter says. “You put yourself under pressure from the studio, you’re carrying all this money, crew, you want to be on time.”

He remembers seeing some haggard making-of footage of himself in post-production on “Ghost of Mars” in 2001 and thinking: Oh my God, this guy is in trouble. “I had to stop,” he says. “I can’t do this to myself anymore. I can’t take this kind of stress — it’ll kill you, as it has so many other directors. The music came along and it’s from God. It’s a blessing.”

John Carpenter is grateful but he doesn’t believe in God. He believes that, when we die, “we just disperse — our energy disperses, and we return to what we were. We’re all stardust up there and the darkness created us, in a sense. So that’s what we have to make peace with. I point up to the infinite, the space between stars. But things stop when you die. Your heart stops, brain — everything stops. You get cold. Your energy dissipates and it just… ends. The End.”

This is not exactly a peaceful thought for him.

“I mean, I don’t want to die,” he adds. “I’m not looking forward to that. But what can you do? I can’t control it. But that’s what I believe and I’m alone in it. I can’t put that on anybody else. Everybody has their own beliefs, their own gods, their own afterlife.”

He describes himself as a “long-term optimist but a short-term pessimist.”

“I have hope,” he says, “put it that way.” Yet he looks around and sees a lot of evil.

“The true evil in the world comes from people,” says Carpenter, who has long used cinematic allegories to skewer capitalist pigs and bloodthirsty governments. “I know that nature’s pretty rough, but not like men. You see pictures of lions taking down their prey and you see the face of the prey and you say: ‘Oh, man.’ Humans do things like that and enjoy it. Or they do things like that for power or pleasure. Humans are evil but they’re capable of massive good — and they’re capable of the greatest art form we have: music.”

The greatest?

“You don’t have to talk about it. You just sit and listen to it. It’s not my favorite,” he clarifies, alluding to his first love, cinema — “but it’s the one that transcends centuries.”

Music has always been kinder to him than the movie business. That business recently reared its ugly head when A24 tossed his completed score for “Death of a Unicorn.” (At least he owns the rights and will be putting it out sometime soon.) In addition to the high he gets from playing live, he is currently working on a heavy metal concept album complete with dialogue. It’s called “Cathedral” and he’ll be playing some of it at the Belasco.

It’s essentially a movie in music form, based on a dream Carpenter had. Though not one he finds scary. What scares Carpenter, it seems, is not being in control.

That happened to him in the movie world, it’s happening more and more as what he calls the “frailties of age” mount and it happens in that nightmare about getting lost in a big city and not finding any theaters.

“But I can’t do anything about it,” he says. “What can I do? See, the only thing I can do is what I can control: music. And watching basketball.”

Pop star Sabrina Carpenter hosted “Saturday Night Live” for the first time ever, but it sure didn’t feel like it.

Carpenter was the musical guest last year when Jake Gyllenhaal hosted, and at the 50th anniversary special, she performed with Paul Simon and appeared in a sketch. Whether it’s because she’s done the show both as a musician and a comedic performer (her song performances are often a mix of both) or not, Carpenter seems perfectly at ease in Studio 8H, like she’s always been there.

That served her well on an episode that started badly with a retread of a sketch that’s been done a few too many times (keyword: Domingo), and a monologue that, despite Carpenter’s charm, didn’t seem to connect with the audience.

But after that, Carpenter’s quicksilver timing and ease, plus a diverse set of sketches, put the episode over the top. She sounded just like a 12-year-old boy in a sketch about preteens hosting a podcast called “Snack Homies” with President Trump (James Austin Johnson) as a guest, sold a provocative neck pillow in a funny Shop TV sketch, performed a pretaped “Grind Song” with Bowen Yang, and was thrown out of a window as the host of a girlboss seminar. She scared a co-worker (Ashley Padilla, quickly becoming a critical “SNL” utility player) on her birthday and played a singing and dancing washing machine alongside new cast member Veronika Slowikowska.

It also didn’t hurt that Carpenter’s two playful and well-sung musical performances, for “Manchild” and “Nobody’s Son,” were showstoppers. Her love of the show was evident: she performed the former wearing a “Live from New York” T-shirt and panties with “It’s Saturday Night!” written on the back.

The best argument for inviting Sabrina Carpenter back sometime might be that she held the show together with no outside guests or surprise cameos, which hasn’t happened on “SNL” in a long time. The only exception was a short film from “Please Don’t Destroy” writer Martin Herlihy at the end of the show that may have been about racism and Frankenstein’s Monsters (yes, plural).

We’ll keep this short because the less said about this week’s cold open the better. Chloe Fineman and Andrew Dismukes returned as Matthew and Kelsey, a couple that has struggled in the past with trust issues from Kelsey’s frequent trips with her friends that usually end with a passionate affair with a guy named Domingo (Marcello Hernández). This time, they’re celebrating Matthew’s 30th birthday, but for some reason, Kelsey has flown in her girlfriends (including Carpenter) to sing some pop songs in bad karaoke style about a recent weekend they spent in Nashville. This time the songs are modeled after Taylor Swift’s “Fate of Ophelia,” Lady Gaga’s “Abracadabra” and Alex Warren’s “Ordinary Song.” The ladies went to Nashville and of course Domingo is still around. “This is strike six,” Matthew cries haplessly. “Babe, it won’t happen again,” Kelsey promises. Let’s hope so. The Domingo sketches need to be put to rest.

Carpenter’s monologue was largely about dispelling (but not really) the notion that the singer is overly sexualized, or as she described it, a “Horndog popster.” “There’s so much more to me,” she said, “I’m not just horny. I’m also turned on.” She made hay of the controversy over her “Man’s Best Friend” album cover by joking that it was cropped and revealing that Bowen Yang and Martin Short both originally appeared on it, with Yang pulling her up by her hair and Short pushing her away from a buffet line. The monologue started to fizzle when Carpenter went to the audience for some interaction to prove she can have chemistry with anyone or anything, only to come back to the stage for an awkward bit with Kenan Thompson, who said he wanted a Cameo video for his niece. Carpenter has charisma to spare, but the monologue was too disjointed to go anywhere.

Best sketch of the night: Does making plans to see “Plans” also scare you?

Mock horror movie trailers have done well on “SNL” lately and the streak continues with “Plans,” a Blumhouse horror film featuring Ben Marshall and Carpenter as a couple horrified to realize that plans they made back on Fourth of July have suddenly come to fruition with a cousin and her husband. As their terror grows, they remember that the cousin (Sarah Sherman) talks about marathons (“The way I see it, losing toenails is a badge of honor”) and the husband (Dismukes) likes to show off 11-minute YouTube videos. They’re going to end up at a crowded ramen restaurant and then a bad interactive play. For anyone who’s ever regretted saying yes to socializing, this might be your worst nightmare.

Also good: The neck pillow monologues

The Shop TV sketches wouldn’t work so well if Padilla and Mikey Day didn’t do such a good job infusing their characters Bev and Rhett with such practiced professional panic when things go awry, as they’ve done before. Carpenter appears as Virginia Duffy, a crafter who’s designed an ergonomic pillow that looks just like a giant vagina, which comes in different colors. “Why would you bring the pink one?” asks an exasperated Rhett. By the time the faux fur lining is added and Rhett tries on the neck pillow, culminating in an unwanted baby sound effect, Shop TV has done it again. Bonus points for Johnson as Tim Tucker, who appears at the beginning of the sketch with a trick-or-treat pail in the shape of Jesus Christ’s head. “Trick or treat, smell my feet, walk with Christ down the Halloween street,” he chants.

‘Weekend Update’ winner: Did you see ‘Saw’? He did not

New cast member Tommy Brennan discussed moving to New York and growing up in Minnesota, but it was the return of Hernandez’s Movie Guy character, who wants to talk about scary movies but has seen absolutely none of them. “Everybody saw ‘Weapons!’ I have to tell you, I was not one of those people,” he says. Movie Guy expresses that horror movies often tell you what they’re about: with “Scream,” “everbody scream!” With “Smile,” “everybody smile!” How about “Saw?” “Everybody saw! But not me, I did not see.” He goes on to touch on why Stewie from “Family Guy,” “Shrek” and others are also scary (even if he hasn’t seen them). “‘One Missed Call’ … is this a movie about my mother?”

POP star Sabrina Carpenter is a white for sore eyes in a revealing outfit.

The Espresso singer, 26, was seen leaving TV show Saturday Night Live’s after-party in New York.

She had appeared in a sketch as a young boy interviewing “President Donald Trump” for a podcast.

Sabrina also addressed the controversy over the cover for her latest album Man’s Best Friend, which showed her on all fours being grabbed by the hair.

She said the pic was cropped and joked that the original showed SNL’s Bowen Yang ­lifting her up by the hair after she had been pushed over by actor Martin Short.

Fans have rushed to her defence and accused SNL of “trying to sabotage” her following a tech issue during one of her skits.

NONSENSE

Sabrina Carpenter fans accuse SNL of ‘trying to sabotage’ star after tech issue

manchild

Sabrina Carpenter jokes she’s ‘had to train men’ – as she strips off for shoot

The singer returned to the late-night live sketch comedy show to host and perform on Saturday night but her mic briefly went off mid-skit.

This meant viewers were unable to decipher what the Espresso singer was saying.

She continued to say her lines with the other SNL stars before the mic was switched back on after a few songs.

However, her loyal fans were left unhappy and flocked to social media to share their frustration.

One person wrote: “Brief mic problem. Can’t recall ever seeing that before.”

Another fan of the Grammy award-winner fumed: “Who cut off Sabrina’s mic in the middle of the skit? They tryna sabotage my girl.”

Surprise! The 2026 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival lineup is out and it’s topped by pop stars.

Sabrina Carpenter, Justin Bieber and Karol G will headline the twin weekends of the festival, which return to the Empire Polo Club in Indio April 10-12 and 17-19, 2026.

Other notable acts include elder statesmen such as Iggy Pop, David Byrne and Devo, rock acts including the Strokes and Turnstile, pop star Addison Rae, Laufey, EDM superstar Kaskade, rapper Young Thug and dozens of others.

The bottom of the festival poster also announces something called “The Bunker Debut of Radiohead Kid A Mnesia.” The British rock band Radiohead recently announced European tour dates.

Also at the bottom of the poster, which has become a place for the festival to announce special engagements, is the world premiere of Anyma’s “Æden.” Anyma, the project of producer and artist Matteo Miller, was the first electronic act to headline Sphere in Las Vegas.

At the top of the poster for Friday, listed between the XX and Disclosure is an act called Nine Inch Noize. German producer Boys Noize joined Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails’ on the band’s recent tour and also labeled a live collaboration as Nine Inch Noize System on Instagram.

Since its inception in 1999, Coachella has included a diverse range of musical styles, but also less-than-expected acts, such as the colorful monsters of the show Yo Gabba Gabba! and the L.A. Phil earlier this year. For 2026, another beloved L.A. institution is on the bill: Bob Baker Marionettes, of the Bob Baker Marionette Theater, are listed on the poster for Friday.

Coachella has given a spotlight to some of the world’s biggest K-pop and J-pop acts in recent years and in 2026 acts including Bigbang, Fujii Kaze, and Taemin.

The 2026 edition is also a makeup show of sorts for FKA Twigs, who had to cancel her 2025 North American tour, including stops at Coachella, due to visa issues. Promoter Goldenvoice has traditionally released the festival’s lineup in January, three months or so before the event.

Tickets start at $649 for a three-day pass for Weekend 1 and $549 for Weekend 2. (If you buy a 4-pack of tickets you can save $10 per pass.) VIP passes for Weekend 1 start at $1,299 and are $1,199 for Weekend 2.

New for 2026 is a group camping option, which allows people who want to camp together to arrive at different times. There’s a 10-spot minimum and a 20-spot maximum. Each camping spot is $160.

Passes go on sale to the general public at 11 a.m. Pacific on Friday, Sept. 19 at www.coachella.com.

See the full Coachella 2026 lineup.

Pop superstardom, it turns out, did absolutely nothing to improve Sabrina Carpenter’s love life.

That’s the thrust of the singer’s shrewd and tangy “Man’s Best Friend,” which dropped Thursday night, just a year after last summer’s chart-topping “Short n’ Sweet.” The earlier album, which spun off a pair of smash singles in “Espresso” and “Please Please Please,” went on to be certified triple platinum and to win two Grammy Awards — more than enough to transform Carpenter, now 26, from a former Disney kid into the latest (and horniest) member of pop’s A list.

Yet all that success seems only to have attracted more of the losers she sang about last time. Here she’s dealing with a smooth talker doling out empty promises, a crybaby who can’t decide what he wants, even a guy so fixated on self-betterment that he’s lost interest in the bedroom.

“He’s busy, he’s working, he doesn’t have time for me,” she trills exasperatedly in “My Man on Willpower,” “My slutty pajamas not tempting him in the least.”

It’s a veritable gallery of rogues, this LP, not least the dude in the dark suit pictured on the cover of “Man’s Best Friend” with a hank of Carpenter’s blond hair in his fist as she kneels before him. The image inspired an instant controversy when she unveiled it in June, with critics accusing her of propping up dangerous ideas about the submission of women in the age of the tradwife.

Responded the singer in a CBS News interview that aired Friday: “Y’all need to get out more.”

Indeed, to take the album artwork at face value is to miss the whole point of Sabrina Carpenter, which is not just lampooning a prudish instinct — of course she’s in on the joke — but demonstrating the limits of a dating scene — of an entire social power structure — in which this is what a girl at the top has to work with.

“I like my boys playing hard to get / And I like my men all incompetent,” she sings in the LP’s opener and lead single, “Manchild.” She swears she’s not choosing them — that they keep choosing her. Then she punctuates the claim by batting her fake eyelashes and rhyming “Amen” with a flirty “Hey, men.”

As with “Short n’ Sweet,” Carpenter made “Man’s Best Friend” with a tight crew of accomplices — Jack Antonoff, John Ryan and Amy Allen, plus a bunch of tasty studio players — and once again they get a sound that combines the hooky splendor of ’70s-era AM-radio pop (think ELO, Wings and especially ABBA) with touches of country and dance music.

“Tears,” in which Carpenter lusts after a guy capable of putting together a chair from IKEA, is a pillowy disco thumper with echoes of KC and the Sunshine Band’s “That’s the Way (I Like It)”; “Nobody’s Son” puts starchy palm-court strings over a bouncy reggae groove. Carpenter’s singing plays like an actor’s sizzle reel, by turns winsome, sneering, bubbly and resigned; in the twangy “Go Go Juice” alone — it’s about a woman who’s woken up at 10 a.m. and opted to spend the day drunk-dialing exes — she runs through every emotional gradient separating determination from shame.

Song for song — line for line, really — “Man’s Best Friend” isn’t quite as sharp as “Short n’ Sweet,” which offered the rare thrill of a young artist coming into her own on her sixth studio album. Occasionally, you can sense Carpenter reaching for a memeable lyric, as in the many gags about wetness in “Tears”; “When Did You Get Hot?,” meanwhile, feels like something Ariana Grande abandoned after workshopping for a minute.

When she’s on, though, she’s on: “Goodbye” is a dazzling orchestral-pop number in which she gives the boot to a hot-and-cold lover — “Arrivederci, au revoir / Forgive my French, but f— you, ta-ta” — and “House Tour” a winking sex romp whose thwacking drums and rubbery funk bass call to mind Paula Abdul’s “Opposites Attract.” (After Doja Cat’s Antonoff-produced “Jealous Type,” might this signal a coming Abdul-aissance?)

Near the end of the album, Carpenter dials down the comedy for “Don’t Worry I’ll Make You Worry,” a sad and shimmery ballad about the thin line between love and war. “Silent treatment and humbling your ass / Well, that’s some of my best work,” she sings over strummed acoustic guitar before promising oh so sweetly to “leave you feeling like a shell of a man.”

If you can’t join ’em, beat ’em.

Sabrina Carpenter doesn’t care what “Tommy from Arkansas” thinks about her artistic choices.

In an interview with “CBS Mornings” on Friday, the “Espresso” singer talked about her reaction to the controversy behind the cover of her seventh album, “Man’s Best Friend,” which displays Carpenter on her knees at the feet of a male figure pulling her hair.

Gayle King read aloud a comment in which a fan said that Carpenter “can’t have it both ways. If it’s satire of how men treat us, it can’t also be a straightforward image of a woman being submissive just because it’s sexy.”

“Y’all need to get out more,” Carpenter told King. “I think I was actually shocked because I think between me and my friends and my family and the people that I always share my music and my art with first, it just wasn’t even a conversation.”

Last year, Carpenter released the album “Short n’ Sweet,” an LP that became one of the vibe setters for last summer.

During the 67th Grammys ceremony, the record took home two awards — pop vocal album and pop solo performance for “Espresso.”

Her follow-up effort was released on Thursday; the original artwork dropped months before, on June 11. By June 25, and amid the backlash, the artist posted an alternative cover on her Instagram that was “approved by God.” In it, the former Disney Channel co-star of “Girl Meets World” — she also sang the theme song — is simply standing by a man.

During the interview, the “Please Please Please” singer discussed her intentions behind the original cover art that divided fans.

“My interpretation is being in on the control, being in on your lack of control and when you want to be in control,” Carpenter said. “I think as a young woman, you’re just as aware of when you’re in control as to when you’re not.”

She added: “[‘Man’s Best Friend’ is] about the humanity of allowing yourself to make those mistakes, knowing when you’re putting yourself in a situation that will probably end up poorly, but it’s going to teach you something.”

But what do her parents think?

“My parents actually saw the photo, and they loved it.”

Women’s Super League champions Chelsea have signed Australia defender Ellie Carpenter from Lyon on a four-year contract for an undisclosed fee.

Carpenter, 25, played for Chelsea boss Sonia Bompastor at Lyon and leaves after five years with the club, having won the Champions League in 2019-20 and 2021-22.

“I’m very proud to join such a big club, one of the biggest in women’s football,” said Carpenter.

“Chelsea have enjoyed so much success in England and I’m delighted to now be a part of it.”

Chelsea, who also won the FA Cup and the League Cup in 2024-25, announced Carpenter’s signing the day after Canada’s Ashley Lawrence, 30, signed for Lyon from the Blues.

Carpenter, who has 87 international caps, is vastly experienced, having made her senior Australia debut at the age of just 15.

Aged 16, she became the youngest woman to ever play football at the Olympics at Rio 2016.

Her career also includes a spell in the United States for Portland Thorns.

As well as two Champions League successes, Carpenter won the league four times with Lyon.

SACRAMENTO — Two prosecution witnesses said Tuesday that then-Sen. Paul Carpenter pressured them for campaign contributions when they went to see him about legislative business in the mid-1980s.

One of those witnesses, Daniel Haley, a former lobbyist for the Western Growers Assn., told jurors at Carpenter’s political corruption trial that Carpenter handed him a list of the association’s campaign contributions during a meeting in 1984 or 1985 in the lawmaker’s Capitol office.

Haley said Carpenter told him, something to the effect, “Based on that (list) do you expect me to help you or listen to you?”

“I certainly got the message that we had not contributed to him or his compadres, and he was not interested in the issue I was trying to present,” said Haley, who now heads the Agricultural Marketing Service for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“I felt if we had contributed to Sen. Carpenter I would have had an opportunity to address him about my views on the issues,” Haley added.

Carpenter, a Long Beach Democrat who is now a member of the State Board of Equalization, is facing racketeering, extortion and conspiracy charges that accuse him of seeking campaign contributions in exchange for political favors. The trial began Monday.

He has pleaded innocent.

The charges relate to a series of incidents that allegedly took place before Carpenter, 62, left the Legislature in 1987 to take a seat on the tax board.

Another former senator, Joseph Montoya, a Democrat from Whittier, is serving a 6 1/2-year prison sentence on charges stemming from the same FBI investigation at the Capitol.

Haley said he went to Carpenter’s office to see the then-senator about a bill or the appointment of former Republican Assemblyman David Stirling to be chief prosecutor for the state Farm Labor Board.

Instead of discussing legislative issues, Haley said, Carpenter handed him the contribution list. “I was a little shocked, a little embarrassed and a little uncomfortable,” Haley said.

Under cross-examination from defense attorney Gerard Hinckley, Haley said he has a “somewhat blurred recollection” of the meeting and can’t remember precisely what was said and exactly what he wanted to discuss with Carpenter.

But he said he remembered the incident because “of the position I was put in with regard to contributions.”

Another witness, Jeff Thompson, chief lobbyist for the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn., said he felt that Carpenter was suggesting a quid pro quo during a 1985 meeting at Carpenter’s office.

Thompson said he and another police lobbyist, Gavin McHugh, went to see Carpenter about a bill that their organization was backing. Carpenter quickly changed the subject to campaign contributions and why the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn. hadn’t contributed to him, Thompson said.

“The fact that he switched the conversation at that point directly to money put us in a really unusual position,” Thompson said. “That was the most uncomfortable meeting I ever had in my nine years as a lobbyist.”

Hinckley suggested during cross-examination that Thompson didn’t believe when he left the meeting with Carpenter that it was a shakedown.

“Oh, no, quite the contrary,” Thompson said. “We were shaken down in that meeting.”

But Thompson acknowledged telling a federal grand jury that he came to view the meeting as a shakedown only after learning of the FBI investigation of Capitol corruption. He said he never reported the incident until a federal agent telephoned and asked if he had ever been victimized by Carpenter.

Thompson said Carpenter never actually stated that he wanted money for his vote, but the lobbyist said he believed that was what the former lawmaker was suggesting.

“It certainly was weird,” Thompson said. “It was the most unusual pressure (for contributions) I had ever had. I would say his behavior was uncalled for.”

Thompson said Monday that his group gave Carpenter a $1,000 contribution about three months after the meeting.

McHugh testified that he attended the meeting with Carpenter and Thompson.

Carpenter had a document in his hands and told the two lobbyists, “I see you have given significant contributions to Sen. Richardson,” McHugh told jurors.

Carpenter and former Sen. H.L. Richardson (R-Glendora) had a well-publicized clash in 1985 after Carpenter suggested that Richardson was involved in an earlier corruption scandal. No charges were ever filed against Richardson.

“I got the distinct impression . . . that he (Carpenter) was angry with us,” McHugh said, adding that Carpenter “kind of scowled and had a frown on his face” although his voice was soft.

“I was a little shocked and I think I was a little bit intimidated,” McHugh added.

“It was not like any other meeting I had had before or since,” McHugh added. “I had never been asked for any kind of financial support . . . by anyone in the Capitol.”

Sabrina Carpenter divided fans earlier this month with her choice of cover art for her forthcoming album, “Man’s Best Friend.” Playing on the title, she poses on all fours like a dog while a faceless man pulls her hair.

While some interpreted the cover as cheeky and ironic — especially given the themes of the album’s first single, “Manchild” — others accused the former Disney Channel star of promoting sexist stereotypes and setting women‘s rights back decades.

Carpenter has addressed criticism by releasing an alternative cover “approved by God,” the singer revealed Wednesday on Instagram.

The black-and-white image seemingly channels Marilyn Monroe as the singer, dressed in an elegant beaded gown, leans against a man in a suit. Carpenter is front and center while the man‘s face is partially hidden.

This isn’t the first time Carpenter has ruffled some feathers.

In 2023, she received backlash from the Catholic Church after she filmed parts of her “Feather” music video at the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church. The Diocese of Brooklyn said it was “appalled” by the nature of the video and the priest who allowed her to film there was removed from his administrative duties.

When asked about the incident in an interview with Variety, Carpenter responded, “Jesus was a carpenter.” She doubled down during her Coachella debut in 2024, wearing a shirt with the same phrase.

The singer has also raised eyebrows on her Short n’ Sweet Tour, which returns to North America this fall. During her sultry performance of “Juno,” she acts out a different sex position every night.

Carpenter addressed the criticism that she’s shaped her entire brand around sex in her June cover story with Rolling Stone.

“It’s always funny to me when people complain,” she said. “They’re like, ‘All she does is sing about this.’ But those are the songs that you’ve made popular. Clearly you love sex. You’re obsessed with it. It’s in my show. There’s so many more moments than the ‘Juno’ positions, but those are the ones you post every night and comment on. I can’t control that.”

In a since-deleted post, an X user shared the first “Man’s Best Friend” cover and asked, “Does she have a personality outside of sex?” Carpenter responded, “Girl yes and it is goooooood.”

Among those who came to Carpenter’s defense of the original album art was “You’re So Vain” singer Carly Simon, who received backlash for the cover of her 1975 album, “Playing Possum.”

“She’s not doing anything outrageous,” Simon told Rolling Stone. “It seems tame. There have been far flashier covers than hers. One of the most startling covers I’ve ever seen was [the Rolling Stones’] ‘Sticky Fingers.’ That was out there in terms of sexual attitude. So I don’t know why she’s getting such flak.”

“Man’s Best Friend” will be released Aug. 29, a little over a year after Carpenter’s last project, “Short n’ Sweet.” Signed editions and copies with the alternative cover are available for preorder on her website.