Sabrina Carpenter 'Sent for a Loop' Over Fortnite Avatar Edits (EXCL)
Sabrina Carpenter has had a huge year as chart-topping pop star and also became one of the faces of Fortnite, earning her the coveted status of an in-game skin, but a source exclusively tells Life & Style the “Please Please Please” singers’ digital honor has quickly descended into a nightmare as reprobate fans began creating explicit memes, animation and content using her avatar.
“They are putting her avatar in freaky positions, it’s not good,” the insider reveals. “She’s already coming under fire for being too sexy. The last thing she needs is to have teenagers using her avatar in a sexual way.”
The digitized in-game version of Sabrina, 25, was added to the massively popular game in April 2024 as part of a larger Fortnite Festival event that also saw skins of Billie Eilish and The Weeknd made available. They joined the company of other A-list singers, like Travis Scott, Ariana Grande and Lady Gaga, to be featured in the same way. The “Espresso” singer’s addition to the game was noted as a huge milestone as her red-hot career takes off.
“It’s also very weird to know people are doing this with a cartoon of her,” the insider explains. “People around her are saying that this shouldn’t be allowed to happen, but there’s really no way to stop it.”
Sabrina has long faced criticism and backlash for the overt sexuality in her music and performances, a fact that the source notes is making the disturbing fan art and manipulated game footage from Fortnite all the more stressful of a situation to deal with.
Embodying the confidence and look of a 1950s pin-up girl on tour and coming out with steamy music videos like “Feather,” Sabrina has always pushed back against the notion that embracing her femininity is something to be ashamed of, but that doesn’t mean others won’t see a sexually open woman as threatening and an easy target.
“My message has always been clear — if you can’t handle a girl who is confident in her own sexuality, then don’t come to my shows,” she told The Sun in response to criticism of her dancing while on tour. “Female artists have been shamed forever. In the noughties it was Rihanna, in the nineties it was Britney Spears, in the eighties it was Madonna — and now it’s me.”
“I’ve always felt really empowered by being a woman in pop,” Sabrina explained to Rolling Stone in an interview published in June 2024. “But that doesn’t mean it’s easy.”
“She just has to try and ignore it until it blows over because there’s no recourse,” the source adds. “Sabrina’s been in the business for most of her life, so she’s seen a lot when it comes to fans, but this is something that she has never experienced and it’s really sent her for a loop.”
“Her team has been rallying around her and promising to help shut this down,” the insider adds, “but it still remains to be seen if there’s anything they can do about it because this isn’t as simple as getting the game to fix a glitch.”