I strongly believe Sabrina Carpenter is channeling Lana Del Rey‘s aesthetic, not in a copycat way, but in a respectful way that honors Lana‘s contributions to the music industry and pop culture world.

Plenty of people say that Sabrina channels Taylor Swift, but I kind of think that’s a cop-out because Sabrina was invited to be an opener for Taylor’s errors tour.

Just because Sabrina and Taylor are on friendly terms with each other, it doesn’t necessarily mean Sabrina channels Taylor’s aesthetic.

And I am already well aware that Sabrina used to upload covers of herself, singing Taylor songs back in the day on her eyes to fame, but I believe the argument still stands that Sabrina truly channels Lana‘s aesthetic more than anyone else in her career.

Again, I see her doing it in a way that is totally tasteful, respectful, and appreciative of Lana‘s legendary, aesthetic and aura.

Lana has long honored the coquette, 60s, vintage, memory book, dream state vibe, and thats something I’ve often picked up from Sabrina as well.

I spent seven years writing and researching professional entertainment articles for iHeartRadio and RapTV. I’ve worked on official Netflix synopses also. But these days I’m an independent pop culture journalist, and I do deep dives into my favorite movies, TV shows, and celebs.

These are my thoughts on five reasons I strongly believe Sabrina is channeling Lana‘s aesthetic, and has been throughout the course of her career.

“Manchild” music video / “Ride” music video

I’ll start with the most obvious and most recent reason for this overall argument, which is Sabrina‘s music video for her song Manchild. Sabrina dropped the song in 2025 with the music video hitting YouTube in June, and the similarities of the music video to Lana‘s music video for the song Ride are absolutely uncanny.

Let’s go down the list of similarities. And both Manchild and Ride, the videos are shot in desert settings. In both music videos, Sabrina and Lana catch rides from men who may very well be strangers in the back of their motorcycles. In both music videos, Sabrina and Lana wear outfits that reveal a lot of of skin or at the very least, fit the vibe of summertime attire.

In both music videos, both music videos feature scenes with fire, both music videos feature Sabrina and Lana surrounded by a shit ton of men. And both music videos, lean into the beauty of freedom, self expression, and living life on the open road.

Multiple Reddit threads have been launched by fans comparing the music videos for Ride and Manchild. But what I think a lot of people are getting wrong is that they think Sabrina was trying to rip Lana off or copy Lana without giving credit where credit is due.

Sabrina absolutely gave a wink wink nod to Lana when she sang along to Lana song NFR in a TikTok video back in 2022. The opening line from that Lana song is, “GD manchild. You fucked me so good that I almost said I love you.”

It’s pretty obvious Sabrina was affectionately paying homage to Lana‘s artistic vision, which is not a ripoff in my opinion.

Lolita energy

One common thing I’ve seen both Sabrina Carpenter and Lana Del Rey get dragged for in the past is their willingness to tap into Lolita energy. Shining light on very sexuality and hyper feminine vibes has been common for both Lana and Sabrina over the years.

Lana doesn’t necessarily tap into Lolita Energy anymore, and now that she’s gotten older, but once upon a time, she absolutely did. We can’t forget that Lana released an entire song called Lolita back in 2012 as part of her Born to Die album. Songs like Lolita, Off to the Races, Ultraviolence, Cola, Shades of Cool, and more convey the message that she once found herself in relationships with much older men who didn’t always treat her the best.

And some of these instances, the men were abusive and manipulative, preying on her as a much younger and more naïve young woman. Someone would say that Lana even used to romanticize this type of sexual dynamic, but in my opinion, I believe Lana penned those lyrics as therapeutic release as the way of healing from some of the toxic relationship dynamics she used to find herself in.

Nevertheless, the imagery and symbolism of Lana being a young woman in her 20s dating older men in their 40s, 50s, and 60s left a huge impact in the pop culture world. And many would say that this is something Sabrina has also channeled.

In 2024, Sabrina posed for a photo shoot that arguably referenced a scene from the 1997 film Lolita. It was pretty controversial at the time with fans accusing Sabrina of glamorizing inappropriate relationships between young women and older men.

For more context, the actual Lolita movie in 1997 Based on a novel published back in 1955 tells the story of a grown man working as a French literature professor who moves to New England and falls in love with a 12 year-old girl.

The story is told from an unreliable narrator who uses a lot of self-serving justifications to excuse his predatory behavior. Some people have labeled Lolita a tragic romance, but in reality, it’s a story of obsession and abuse. In the book, Lolita is described as a willing participant in the relationship, but based on statutory laws, we are all well aware that a child cannot consent to be romantically involved with an adult.

So back to Sabrina. When she did that photo shoot, her comment sections were flooded with people who were really pissed off, and in that same breath, fans started comparing her to Lana‘s old school days when Lana used to embrace Lolita energy above all else.

It’s easy to understand why people would compare Sabrina and Lana if the topic of Lolita and age gap relationships is getting dragged into the conversation.

Beauty Queen hairstyles, makeup, & fashion

The third comparison draw comes down to visual aesthetics regarding their hairstyles and makeup choices. Lana wants sing the iconic line. “Done my hair up real big, beauty queen style“ in Summertime Sadness. It was a reference to the 1960s inspired retro look with super glamorous hair that’s teased to the extreme with high volume for a vintage aesthetic that represented what beauty queens of that era looked like while participating in beauty pageants.

As of this video publication, Lana doesn’t necessarily tease her hair to the extreme and wear her hair in big beauty queen hairstyles anymore, but it was such a huge part of her aesthetic for so many years, it will be impossible for advanced to ever forget about it or let it go. And on occasion, she does pull out all the stops with big beauty queen hairstyles and makeup.

For example, during her European performances in July 2025, she hit the stage in Glasgow, Liverpool, London, Dublin, and Cardiff. Lana‘s lashes, nails, and overall makeup looks have always helped her stand out in a crowd full of people. Dramatic lashes, long acrylic, nails, winged eyeliner, and classic red lipstick have been the norm for Lana.

When it comes to her wardrobe, Lana has spent so much time performing in pretty little dresses, baby doll style dresses, form fitting dresses, dresses do show off a little bit of cleavage and a lot of leg, and more.

And this is why I feel Sabrina has channeled Lana‘s aesthetic. Again, not in a copy cat way by any stretch of the imagination. But I think Sabrina found a lot of beauty and inspiration in Lana‘s overall appearance, so she took a page out of Lana‘s book when cultivating her own style.

And I’m well aware that Lana isn’t the only musician in history to lean into the 60s vintage aesthetic as a performer, but since we already know, Sabrina is a fan of Lana, it’s not really that crazy of a conclusion to come to.

Sabrina‘s hair is often teased to the extreme, done up real big beauty queen style. She is all about long, dramatic lashes, prominent winged eyeliner, vibrant shades of lipstick, and stage outfits that give baby doll vibes or at the very least, show off quite a bit of skin.

Sabrina definitely want her own special direction when she started performing in custom lingerie sets, which is something we never saw out of Lana, so it’s obvious that Sabrina has her own original thoughts and vibes, and Sabrina is capable of starting her own trends. But to completely discount many of the hairstyle, makeup, and fashion similarities between her and Lana would be a bit ignorant and ridiculous.

History of dating bad boys / emotionally avoidant men

Another major similarity I noticed between Sabrina and Lana is their relationship history. I’m well aware that Lana is happily married now to Jeremy Dufrene and she actually genuinely seems to be on cloud nine in this marriage, but back in the day, Lana‘s relationship history was riddled with heartbreak and chaos.

Going down the entire list of emotionally, avoidant men and bad boys who broke her heart along the way isn’t a good use of anyone’s time, so I’m not going to. I’ll keep it brief. One of her biggest breakups was with Sean Larkin, the reality TV cop from the show Live PD who inspired some of her saddest heartbreak songs ever.

It’s rumored that she had him in mind when penning the lyrics to A&W, Blue Banisters, and Chemtrails over the Country Club, although none of that has actually been confirmed.

We do know that the breakup was hard on her because while she was promoting her Ocean Boulevard album, she only promoted it with one single billboard in his hometown, adding a caption that said, “There’s only one billboard and it’s in Tulsa. It’s personal.”

Obviously, that was a fuck you message for Sean. She later started dating a man named Clayton Johnson, and even filmed the original music video for Blue Banisters with him. But she scrapped the entire music video when the relationship fell apart, which leads us to believe as fans that the split was not amicable. But as of now, we really don’t know what happened.

Before all that, she was linked to G-Eazy for a few months in April before they parted ways and he suddenly popped up dating Halsey not long after.

Lana is an extremely private person so full details about what went wrong in these relationships will likely never become public aside from what she’s shared in her song lyrics, but her desire to settle down in a committed relationship, get married, and love someone deeply while being loved in return has always been very obvious as well, based on a lot of her lyrics.

The men in her past relationship history were not able to deliver on any of those needs. and that reminds me of a little bit of what we’ve seen in Sabrina Carpenter‘s dating history.

Dealing with emotionally avoidant men can be actually quite traumatizing. And she sort of dealt with that with both Joshua Bassett, and Shawn Mendes. Again, keep in mind that we don’t really know what happened behind closed doors in any of these relationships, but her relationship with Joshua Bassett caused a lot of drama because of his loose ends with Olivia Rodrigo and her short-lived flind with Shawn Mendes was also riddled with drama since he had loose ends with Camila Cabello.

Then, she dated Barry Keoghan from late 2023 till late 2024. A source told People they broke up to focus on their careers, but Sabrina seemingly threw shade at him in the music video to her remix for the song Please Please Please with Dolly Parton where she featured a Barry look-alike tied up in the back of her car with a burlap sock over his head.

Lana’s relationship history, dealing with emotionally avoidant men rings quite similar to Sabrina‘s relationship history as well. Lana‘s love story has a happy ending, though, which means Sabrina has a lot of hopefulness to look forward to in the future, and she’s still so extremely young at only 26 years old.

And let me just clarify really quick that this point isn’t necessarily Sabrina channeling Lana’s aesthetic, but merely just a huge commonality / similarity I noticed between them.

“Espresso” music video / “F*ck it I Love You” music video

My final point for Sabrina channeling Lana‘s aesthetic comes down to what I witnessed and Sabrina‘s music video for Espresso compared to Lana‘s music video for Fuck It I Love You.

The Espresso music video was dropped in 2024, but Lana‘s music video for Fuck It I Love You came out six years ago in 2019. The thing about Lana‘s music video is that it didn’t necessarily get as much attention as Espresso did, but that doesn’t mean inspiration for Espresso wasn’t drawn from it.

Sure, you can say Sabrina could’ve come up with the entire concept for Espresso on her own or gathered that beachy vibe in a bikini from a long list of other music videos in circulation right now, but I really feel that Sabrina gained some inspiration from Lana, since we know for a fact that Sabrina is a fan of Lana, and has been for a long time.

First starters, the color scheme, lighting, and visual design in both these music videos has been damn near replicated. Secondly, Lana spends the majority of her music video in a bathing suit at the beach, which is exactly how we see Sabrina in her music video. Lana spends time on a surfboard in her music video, and that’s something we also see from Sabrina and hers. Lana is serving body as tea vibes in her music video, and that’s something we absolutely see from Sabrina and her music video.

We see retro dance moves from Lana and her music video and we see the same exact thing from Sabrina and hers. We see pretty girls in the background, beautiful skies, and ocean views in both music videos as well. There are so many similarities, it’s quite honestly impossible to ignore, in my opinion.

The sound of the songs are not comparable, but the vibes of the music videos truly are. And like I’ve said many times throughout this video, I don’t think Sabrina has ever ripped off Lana, or copied Lana in a disrespectful manner. I think, just like several other Gen Z starlets, including Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Eilish, Chappell Roan, Sabrina also looks up to Lana and has naturally channeled some of Lana‘s aesthetics in her own music career in recent years.