Sabrina Carpenter got candid during her speech as she accepted the Hitmaker of the Year Award at the 2025 Variety Hitmakers Brunch. Reflecting on her decade-long journey to mainstream success, the pop star used her moment onstage to challenge industry expectations and remind young artists of the importance of staying true to themselves.
Carpenter began by acknowledging the irony of the honor. “This award is so funny to me,” she said. “There were a good eight to ten years of my life where I was the literal opposite of a hit maker. I was barely a bubbling undermaker. I was just making songs, so I was just a maker.” She recalled starting to write music at age ten, before pressure and perception complicated her relationship with the craft. Signing her first record deal at twelve—“which was not weird at all,” she joked—only intensified the expectation that her work should produce hits. Carpenter explained how the industry’s obsession with formulas often pushed her away from the instinct and freedom that shaped her early songwriting. “Everyone tries to tell you what a hit is. And if anyone will try to tell you, it’s a record label,” she said. “But that is no way to approach creativity.”
The 26-year-old then offered a piece of advice shaped by her own experience: “The way to make music I loved was to write the opposite of whatever you think the hit is.” That mindset, she suggested, guided her toward the sound that finally resonated with both fans and critics.
Her recognition as Hitmaker of the Year marks another milestone in a career that has skyrocketed over the past two years. Carpenter becomes the third consecutive woman to receive the honor, following Charli XCX, SZA, and Dua Lipa, who shared the title with Elton John in 2022. The award celebrates her Man’s Best Friend era, which produced multiple hits including “Manchild” and “Tears,” and arrives after a breakthrough 2024 defined by the massive success of “Espresso,” “Please Please Please,” and the Short n’ Sweet era as a whole.
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