I would just like to say for the record that I have absolutely no evidence to back this claim up. This is something that’s been on my mind for a while, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on this! (SPOILER ALERT!!!)

I rewatched Scream (2022) recently and I started thinking about Sam (Melissa Barrera) and Tara Carpenter’s (Jenna Ortega) mother. Their mother didn’t appear in this film, and the only things we knew about her was her name was Christina, she slept with Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich) and had his baby (Sam), and she was an alcoholic. I got to thinking and I believe we’ve seen Christina in the first Scream movie. My theory is that Christina Carpenter was none other than the cheerleader who was bad-mouthing Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) in the bathroom after the first murders.

As I watch her just tear into Sidney, it seems to me she has real animosity towards her. It doesn’t seem like the usual mean girl cheerleader shtick to me. When she talks about Sidney’s possible motive, it’s like she’s been thinking about it for a while. It’s almost like she really wanted Sidney to be the killer… so she could have Billy to herself? Cause she hates that she had to keep her affair with Billy a secret and she couldn’t have him to herself? I put together a little scenario:

Christina Carpenter was the pretty, popular, cheerleader who seemed to have it all. However, as she was in a relationship with a handsome jock, Tara’s father, she’s strung along by the one she really loves, Billy Loomis, as Billy was focused on his girlfriend, Sidney. Maybe at this point, she wasn’t even aware that she was pregnant yet. She would’ve had to already be in a relationship with Tara’s father for him to believe Sam was his baby, so that adds onto this big old high school mess.

Now, the murders began and Christina had a chance to take her mind off her own issues. As she’s discussing the possibility of Sidney being the killer, she was joking but there was a bit of wishful thinking and hatred under her words. Then it was revealed that Billy was one of the killers. Christina was absolutely distraught. After realizing that she was pregnant, she figured the best option for her was to pretend her baby wasn’t Billy’s and to continue her relationship with Tara’s father and make him think he was Sam’s father. Christina, like any other high schooler, wrote all her thoughts and secrets down that Sam eventually found and confronted her about. As we know, Christina’s husband overheard everything and left their family.

The stress of everything that happened in her life, from sleeping with a serial killer, to having his baby, to watching her family fall apart, led her to the bottom of a bottle where she no longer kept this secret that haunted her for years.