Britney Spears ‘didn’t understand’ Sabrina Carpenter’s alien smooch at VMAs 2024: ‘Why didn’t she kiss a girl?’
Britney Spears has some probing questions about Sabrina Carpenter’s out of this world VMAs performance.
The “Gimme More” singer, 42, shared her thoughts on Wednesday night’s 2024 MTV Video Music Awards in an Instagram video she posted on Thursday, saying that she “didn’t understand” why Carpenter, 25, locked lips with a backup dancer dressed as an alien during her performance.
In the selfie-style video, Spears confessed that she didn’t watch the entire VMAs, but clips of Carpenter’s medley of her songs “Please Please Please,” “Taste” and “Espresso” made it onto her YouTube feed, clips which left her with two big questions.
“Why is she kissing an alien on stage?” Spears asked. “I adore her. I love her to death. I didn’t understand that part.”
“Why didn’t she kiss a girl?” Spears also wondered with a devilish smirk. “Like, that was weird.”
Spears was no doubt winking at her own VMAs history. The star famously kissed Madonna at the 2003 Video Music Awards during a performance with Christina Aguilera and Missy Elliott, recognizing Madge’s influence on the show over the years.
As for the alien Carpenter kissed, it appears the backup dancer portraying the extraterrestrial was female. However, the identity of the smoocher is not yet known.
Spears went on to say that she thought the VMAs ceremony “all together” was “kind of weird.” But weirdness aside, Spears was blown away by Carpenter supposedly name-checking her on the red carpet.
“This Sabrina girl, she said my name on the red carpet and I thought that was kinda cool, because I forget I’m famous sometimes,” Spears admitted.
“Because I’m a mom and I’m kind of old,” she quippped. “I thought it was kinda cool.”
“She made me cool,” she added, clearly excited. She signed off, “Ok maybe not,” and pantomimed zipping her lips shut.
Though Spears didn’t comment on it, Carpenter’s out-of-this-world performance also clearly invoked Spears’ heavenly body of work, specifically her track “Oops! … I Did It Again.”
In the video for the hit, Spears’ fictional paramour arrives on Mars in full astronaut drag to present her with the “Heart of the Ocean” from Titanic. Spears responds in the song and video, “Aw, you shouldn’t have.”
Carpenter played a sound bite of that spoken interlude as she encountered an astronaut during her transition into the “Taste” part of her medley. She went on to dance with a host of astronauts — who also paid homage to the famous Moon Person trophy — and eventually kiss an E.T.
Spears’ influence on the VMAs was felt at the 2024 awards. Megan Thee Stallion recreated the look Spears wore when she performed “I’m A Slave 4 U” at the 2001 Video Music Award, yellow python and all. Though the python proved too much for Megan to handle.
“I’m just playin’! Come get this snake!” she screamed with the snake wrapped around her body.
“I don’t know this snake! This snake don’t know me,” she added, visibly freaked out. “Oh my God! I tried to hold it down for Britney.”
Britney’s 2001 VMAs fashion inspired another star, pop singer Tate McRae, who hit MTV’s 2024 red carpet in a sheer lace dress evocative of a similar super short see-through frock the “Baby One More Time” singer wore on the VMAs red carpet in ’01.
