This year’s Lollapalooza has come and gone, but Dominic Fike and Sabrina Carpenter are still a hot topic after they performed at the beloved Chicago-based music fest. Both artists took over the T-Mobile stage on Sunday, August 3, with the “3 Nights” musician scheduled right before Sabrina’s headlining set.
Ahead of her record-breaking performance, Dominic played a video of the multihyphenate from The Hate U Give. In the scene, her character, Hailey, makes a racially insensitive statement toward Amandla Stenberg’s character, Starr.
“Starr, just pretend the ball is fried chicken,” she said in the clip, where tension heightened during a basketball game. In character, she walked back on her comment, saying, “It’s game talk.”
Fans in the crowd erupted in cheers as soon as the “Manchild” hitmaker’s face came on screen, and following the quick clip came another video of Dominic. He jokingly said, “I’m in the fucking game, bro, it’s a game,” to clarify that he was running a bit.
However, the comments section of a fan-posted video drew mixed reactions. “Now she needs to play a clip from Euphoria lol,” one fan wrote, referring to his stint on the second season of the HBO series. Another added, “Sabrina’s fans crying in comments like it wasn’t funny.”
The Sabrina fans in question chimed in, saying, “She’s acting… in a movie… who does he think cares?” and “Now why would he do this?”
Dominic Fike performing at Lollapalooza on Sunday, August 3.
During The Hate U Give’s theatrical release in 2018, Sabrina revealed what drew her to the project, which is based on Angie Thomas’s novel of the same name. At the time, she told Hero magazine, “I wanted to be a part of it in any way that I could, and I do know that it’s such an important film for so many people.”
As for her role as Hailey, Sabrina knew it would spark some controversy, adding, “For my character specifically, the reason that this character exists – who is ignorant and doesn’t recognise her privilege – she exists because there are people in the world like her. That’s one of the reasons we really hope that people watch it.”
During her interview for Cosmopolitan’s “The Breakdown” video series, Sabrina doubled down on that sentiment. “I unfortunately played everyone’s least favorite character,” she said, adding, “It’s one of the most incredible films I’ve ever gotten the chance to work on, so that was really special.”
The artists—who each have songs titled “Mona Lisa”—have yet to comment on the situation, if at all. After Dominic performed tracks like “Babydoll” and debuted a new song, “All Hands on Deck,” Sabrina closed out Lolla with an iconic headlining set featuring Chicago natives, Earth, Wind and Fire.
