Sabrina Carpenter Shouts Out Queer Community’s Impact on Entertainment: ‘I Don’t think Pop Music Would Exist If it Wasn’t for the Queer Community’ - Billboard

Sabrina Carpenter cheekily fought back against allegations that her team didn’t urgently respond to a request from Madonna. Madonna hilariously called out the “Espresso” singer when the two accepted the award for Best Collaboration at the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday night for their song, “Bring Your Love.” When the 68-year-old explained how the song came together, she shared that after waiting five days for Carpenter’s team to get back to her, she decided to take things into her own hands. “Five days,” Madonna said dryly, leading to “ooohs” from the audience. Madonna performs with Sabrina Carpenter at the Coachella Stage during the 2026 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on April 17 in Indio, California. Kevin Mazur via Getty Images“I DM’d her,” the “Like A Prayer” singer shared as Carpenter laughed. “This is a true story ― she answered me back, and within weeks we were in the studio together.” “I love working with you because you are so professional, and in this day and age, it’s really hard to find professional people to work with,” Madonna added, before Carpenter stepped in to defend her crew.

Marty Sokol woke up on New Year’s Day this year exhausted from celebrating. Club Cobra, his bar in North Hollywood, is a fixture on the queer Latin nightlife scene in Los Angeles. When he logged into his clubs’ social media accounts to post about the night’s revelry, he noticed something weird. Club Cobra’s Instagram page had been taken down. He couldn’t figure out why. “I figured we could go through the proper channels to get it back,” Sokol said. He’d never posted anything racier than PG-level party fliers. After months of contacting Meta, Instagram’s parent company, he said he got no meaningful response. Pages for his other venue, Club Chico in Montebello, went down in May as well. It got stranger. A. I.-driven search engines listed his clubs as permanently closed. Longtime regulars texted him condolences. By June 1, he said, every single one of his club’s Instagram pages had been suspended, along with around a dozen pages from his staff and affiliated club promoters. “Your audience goes to look for you, and you are gone,” Sokol said. “For 15 years we developed hundreds of thousands of followers who we were able to build community with.