A Primer On The Weird Super-Feud Between The ‘Sex And The City’ Cast
This is getting out of control.
Hello and welcome to 2004! There is a big public feud playing out between members of the Sex and the City cast and no one is holding back. Lines have been drawn, people have been called out, fans are up in arms, and I guess you need to pick your side?
Sure, describing yourself as a Carrie or a Samantha for all those years was a little to do with how much you liked butt sex, but now it means war and you’ve already signed up to the draft.
What’s Going On?
Okay. The main drama of this whole thing started last week when Sarah Jessica Parker announced production for Sex and the City 3 had been shut down. When a red carpet entertainment reporter asked her about it being held up, she said, “It’s not halted. It’s over. We’re not doing it.”
“I’m disappointed,” SJP went on. “We had this beautiful, funny, heartbreaking, joyful, very relatable script and story. It’s not just disappointing that we don’t get to tell the story and have that experience, but more so for that audience that has been so vocal in wanting another movie.”
Then shit really hit the fan. On the same day, The Daily Mail published an exclusive report claiming the film had been shelved because of “demands” from Kim Cattrall (Samantha). The publication alleged that Warner Bros canned the project as Cattrall “demanded they produce other movies she had in development or she wouldn’t sign up”.
“The only reason this movie isn’t being made is because of Kim Cattrall,” an unnamed source is quoted as saying. “Everyone was looking forward to making this movie but Kim made it all about her, always playing the victim.”
“Kim held everyone’s life up,” said another unnamed source. “Her behaviour is beyond disappointing.”
Then the whole gang got together…
Willie Garson, who played Stanford Blatch in the series, shared a report on Twitter and said the rumours were true.
Though the post has since been deleted, he certainly hasn’t been quiet on the issue.
Disappointed for all crew holding on for negotiations to conclude for their jobs, and of course, for the fans. Leave it at that. #Truth
— Willie Garson (@WillieGarson) September 29, 2017
Every cast member is integral, and all did amazing work, and would have in this lovely script as well. Nothing to do if one doesn't want to.
— Willie Garson (@WillieGarson) September 29, 2017
People make their own choices. Disappointed, and thankful for the run and great work by all.
— Willie Garson (@WillieGarson) September 29, 2017
Kristin Davis (Charlotte) also took to Instagram to generally reflect on the series. Though her sentiment wasn’t as obviously shady towards Cattrall, it’s definitely full of disappointment.
“I wish that we could have made the final chapter, on our own terms, to complete the story of our characters,” she wrote. “It is deeply frustrating not to be able to share that chapter (beautifully written by MPK) with you.”
Kim Cattrall Is Furious
Kim Cattrall is outright calling bullshit on the Daily Mail. She claims she never made any demands to Warner Bros and had simply turned the project down at the start.
Woke 2 a @MailOnline ?storm! The only 'DEMAND' I ever made was that I didn't want to do a 3rd film….& that was back in 2016
— Kim Cattrall (@KimCattrall) September 29, 2017
She’s since been retweeting support from fans, including one message that said “she doesn’t owe fans a third movie; the second was terrible as it was”, and another that points out the hypocrisy of not supporting her decision to stand her ground.
Person: *applauds SATC for showing empowered women, in control of their own lives*
Same person: *insults @KimCattrall for not doing SATC3*
— shane telford. (@MrShaneReaction) September 29, 2017
Overnight, Cattrall appeared on chat show Piers Morgan’s Life Stories and went into further detail on it all.
“The inference is from some unknown source, the inference is that I am a diva, that I’ve held up production in some way that, ‘Oh now we don’t get to make our movie because of you,’” she said. “The answer was always no and a respectful, firm, no. I never asked for any money, I never asked for any projects. To be thought of as some kind of diva is absolutely ridiculous.
“This is what my 60s are about; they’re about me making decisions for me not my career, for me. And that feels frickin fantastic.”
Cattrall then went on to describe her relationship with the cast — specifically Sarah Jessica Parker — as “toxic”.
“I really think she could have been nicer,” she said. “Nobody ever picks up the phone and tries to contact you and say, ‘How you doing?’ That would have been the way to handle it.
“Usually what happens in a healthy relationship — or a transaction for a job in my business — is that someone says, ‘Are you available?’ and you say ‘yes’ and here’s the job and you say, ‘Yes, but thank you very much but I’m sort of over here right now but thank you very much’ and that person turns to you and they say, ‘That’s great, good luck to you, I wish you the best.’”
“But that’s not what happened here. This feels like a toxic relationship.”
Bad Blood?
You know what the media loves more than the prospect of a fight between two women? A fight between two women who are equal parts beloved and despised, and come pre-packaged with more than a decade of on-screen drama to boot. Will Carrie strangle Samantha with a chunky high-waisted belt? Maybe Samantha will suffocate Carrie with a variety of hot pink sex toys!
CAAAAATTTTFIIIIIGHHHHHHHHHTTTTTTTTTTTT *screeching that stretches for all eternity*
Anyway, this is a long way of saying the actors have long been rumoured to not get on. The first solid report of tension came during the last season when Cattrall went public about pay disputes, indicating that contributed towards the series ending.
“I felt after six years it was time for all of us to participate in the financial windfall of Sex and the City,” Cattrall told chat show host Jonathan Ross. She asked for $1 million per episode — up from around $350,000 — to be more in line with the figure offered to SJP. “When they didn’t seem keen on that I thought it was time to move on.”
The pair have made public statements back and forth for the past decade denying rumours they hate each other, with both women pointing out how sexist the speculation has been.
“People don’t want to believe that we get on,” Cattrall said in 2010. “They have too much invested in the idea of two strong, successful women fighting with each other.”
Sarah Jessica Parker addressed the rumours once again last year when speaking to Howard Stern. “It used to really confound me and really upset me because we were part of a family [on HBO with] The Sopranos and no one ever questioned the relationships of the men on that show,” she said. “No one ever said to them, ‘Did you hang out this weekend with each other? Did you give each other Christmas presents?’
“These were my sisters, these were people that I grew to love and admire.”
So! After all that, it sure does seem a bit awkward that Kim Cattrall called their relationship “toxic”. After speaking specifically about her disappointment with SJP, Cattrall went on to say she’s not very close to the rest of her former co-stars anymore either.
“They all have children and I am ten years older and since specifically the series ended I have been spending most of my time outside of New York so I don’t see them,” she said. “The common ground that we had was the series and the series is over.”
Um… Did We Even Want This Movie?
We definitely know where the cast sit on this one. Kim Cattrall has never really been into it. SJP, Kristin Davis and Willie Garson were keen as hell (SJP has been egging on fans for years now and once described herself as “honour-bound” to fans to deliver a third film). Cynthia Nixon… needs to get some kind of social media, but her last noted comment was from 2012. “I think we had a wonderful ride,” she said. “I think it’s fine to let it go.”
But what about the fans? I have as much love for Sex and the City as the next white woman who discovered the show before they discovered porn, but the second Sex and the City film was terrible. Like, really bad. At this point that is just fact. The 2008 film is sitting at 18 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, it has been described as “a bloated juggernaut of pointlessness”, and it is widely acknowledged as one of the most boring and problematic films in recent memory.
If Kim Cattrall did save us from Sex and the City 3, she should be canonized.
— Boo-is Frightsman (@LouisPeitzman) September 29, 2017
A reminder: the women take an all-expenses paid trip to Abu Dhabi, which is described as “one of the most luxurious, exotic and vivid places on Earth, where the party never ends and there’s something mysterious around every corner.”
Except the production wasn’t even allowed to film in Abu Dhabi, despite being straight-up an ad for the city, due to the content of the script… At one point Samantha throws condoms around a crowded marketplace before air-humping at horrified onlookers and screaming, “I HAVE SEX”.
I can’t imagine why Kim Cattrall doesn’t want back in on this timely and ever-evolving franchise!!
That being said, I completely understand why there are fans who are hanging out for more. No matter how it’s aged — remember when Carrie dumped a really lovely guy for being bisexual? — the series was revolutionary and comforting and important. The characters truly do deserve a better send-off than they got in the last movie. The franchise — one built on the strength of female friendship — definitely deserves a better send-off than the cast tearing each other down in the press.
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Meg Watson is the Editor of Junkee. She tweets at @msmegwatson.