Sabrina Carpenter apologized Saturday after she responded to a fan’s Zaghrouta as “weird” during her Coachella set Friday. Carpenter insisted her response was due to “pure confusion.”
“[M]y apologies i didn’t see this person with my eyes and couldn’t hear clearly. my reaction was pure confusion, sarcasm and not ill intended,” she wrote on social meida. “[I] could have handled it better! now i know what a Zaghrouta is! I welcome all cheers and yodels from here on out.”
Video from the performance in question shows Carpenter seated at a piano when the Zaghrouta rings out.
@kiwolared She’s weird #fyp #coachella #sabrinacarpenter ♬ original sound – kiwola._
After the woman explained the call is “my culture,” Carpenter said, ““Is that what you’re doing? I don’t like it. That’s your culture, yodeling? It’s a call, it’s a call of celebration. Is this Burning Man? What’s going on? This is weird.”
A Zaghrouta is a traditional Arabic and North African call of celebration often performed by women at weddings, parties, and even funerals.
Fans had mixed responses to Carpenter’s apology. One person wrote on X, “It’s understandable. Done the right thing by apologizing. Respecting the diversity of the world we live in is key to a peaceful co-existence.”
A second chimed in, “[B]eing a celebrity must be exhausting cause there’s no way people are mad at this.”
But a third person voice frustrations that some fans continue to have in response to the incident. “You literally asked them if that was their culture and said you didn’t like it afterwards girl bye,” they wrote. “Performative and you probably about to promote an album and this is your way of ‘clearing your name.’”
