Why Did Sabrina Carpenter Change the Ending to Her ‘Tears’ Music Video?
The pop star recently released an alternate ending to her music video for the song.
Published Sept. 2 2025, 6:31 p.m. ET
As one of the hottest current artists in music, Sabrina Carpenter has amassed millions of fans who anticipate every new release — including the latest update to her popular track “Tears.” The pop star recently shared an alternate ending to the music video for the song, and fans have taken to social media with theories regarding why.
On August 29, 2025, Sabrina released her seventh album, Man’s Best Friend, which also coincided with the release of the album’s second single, “Tears.”
Why did Sabrina Carpenter change the ending to “Tears?”
As with most things involving pop stars, Sabrina’s decision to provide an alternate ending spurred an online discourse among her fans as to the reason why. While some have more generic theories about the “Tears” alternate ending, others have more in-depth takes.
“I have a theory that she’s going to change the ending every week until her next video where it’s revealed she’s stuck in a time loop,” one Reddit user theorized.
“I was mad confused at first but it’s a good engagement bait,” added another. “Cause she just made everyone that watch[ed] the video go and watch it again for the alternate ending and i’m pretty sure they’re gonna do that until they rack up hella views or drop another music video.”
“I bet she'll have a few more that roll out for a while before it goes back to the original one,” a third Reddit user wrote." This is so funny to me haha. I wonder if she'll do something like this when she performs live somehow.”
As of now, Sabrina has not publicly shared why she decided to add an alternate ending for the video or if additional endings are forthcoming.
The alternate ending shows Sabrina further tapping into the horror aspect.
In the video, Sabrina is recovering from a car accident that kills her passenger. Disoriented after the accident, she stumbles upon an abandoned house — which is reminiscent of the film classic, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. In the original ending, Sabrina kills her love interest who was presumed dead.
In the new, alternate ending, Sabrina sees a man in the woods, who says to her, “Babe, I’m so glad you’re okay. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
He is then suddenly struck by lightning, despite Sabrina warning him to step aside. As the video ends, the man is toppled by a tree, prompting the Grammy winner to say, “I told him to move over.”
“Man’s Best Friend” has been the source of intense online discourse following the release of its controversial album cover.
In June 2025, Sabrina shared the album cover, which showed her on her hands and knees as a male figure (whose image is only seen partially) grabs a handful of her hair.
Following the backlash for what many critics said was a derogatory image, Sabrina produced an alternate image with a dog on the cover, but still kept the original in play.
“If I’m being completely transparent, I don’t do anything anticipating what the reaction will be,” she said, per The Hollywood Reporter. “When I came up with the imaging for [Man’s Best Friend], it was so clear to me what it meant. So the reaction is fascinating to me. You just watch it unravel and go, ‘wow.’”
“The image, the way I see it, is a metaphor, but I’m sure that other people are like ‘dang, she’s a sub,’” Sabrina added.