Showgirls supporting showgirls. Following the record-breaking No. 1 debut of Taylor Swift‘s The Life of a Showgirl on the Billboard 200 — which it achieved by selling more than 4 million copies in its first week, marking the biggest sales week in history — Sabrina Carpenter took to Instagram Stories to congratulate her former Eras tourmate.
Swift first reacted to the news of her mammoth achievement shortly after it was announced on Monday (Oct. 13), writing on Instagram, “I have 4 million thank you’s I want to send to the fans, and 4 million reasons to feel even more proud of this album than I already was.”
Carpenter then reshared the 14-time Grammy winner’s post and wrote emphatically, “Of. All. Time.” alongside a series of heart emojis.
The “Espresso” singer didn’t need to type out “Greatest” for followers to know that she was calling the latter the “GOAT” — Swift’s numbers speak for themselves. Debuting with 4.002 million equivalent album units, Showgirl blows past Adele’s previous record with 25 for biggest-ever opening week in the modern era.
Showgirl also marks Swift’s 15th album to top the Billboard 200, allowing her to overtake Jay-Z and Drake for the record for most No. 1 albums on the chart as a soloist. In that regard, she is bested only by the Beatles, who had 19 LPs reach the ranking’s summit.
“I’ll never forget how excited I was in 2006 when my first album sold 40,000 copies in its first week,” Swift wrote in her Instagram post about the feat in addition to sharing a photo of herself kissing her new Billboard 200 plaque. “I was 16 and couldn’t even fathom that that many people would care enough about my music to invest their time and energy into it.”
“Thank you for going out to celebrate this project in the movie theaters, investing in vinyl, streaming, watching the video, buying CDs, reading the poems I wrote inside the packaging, and immersing yourselves in The Life of a Showgirl,” she added. “I’ll cherish this feeling forever. Just wow. Thank you for the lovely bouquet.”
Carpenter in particular has a lot of reason to celebrate the success of Showgirl. The Girl Meets World alum was the only guest artist on the album, duetting with Swift on the project’s title track. Swift also wove references to her global Eras Tour into many of the songs on the LP, and Carpenter was one of the superstar’s supporting acts during the Latin America, Asia and Australia legs of the trek.
In October 2024, Carpenter would make a surprise cameo at one of Swift’s Eras shows in New Orleans to perform “Espresso.” The end of “The Life of a Showgirl” features audio recording of the two ladies saying goodnight to the crowd.
“One of the things I’ll always remember from this weekend was getting to surprise the crowd with a performance by the pop princess of our dreams,” Swift wrote of Carpenter on Instagram after the NOLA show. “One of the reasons I respect her so much is that she does things like this, goes out of her way to give fans a surprise moment they didn’t expect.”
