Sarah Jessica Parker vs. Kim Cattrall: Sex and the City's Squabbling Stars
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Ramies, we know it's a Wednesday and so probably everyone is shocked right now. Like why do we have a new episode on the feed? What's going on? But we love surprises and we love just filling you guys up with more content and more podcasts that we think you'll enjoy. And that is why we are dropping an episode of Beef Today on Ram. So Beef is an original scripted nonfiction storytelling podcast where business wars meets pop culture history, which is already so Ram coded. So it's in the family.

Award-winning host Bridget Todd tells the story of legends in their field and how they tried to stomp out their competition only to find that their enemies become the driving force behind their success, ultimately changing the world as we know it. We think you guys are going to love this episode. Make sure to subscribe to Beef and let us know what you think. As the theme song begins, a wave of relief washes over you. Oh.

It's that special time of week again when you get to curl up on the couch in your most comfortable pjs, grab your coziest blanket, and take a long sip of your favorite cocktail.

It's time for you to spend the next 30 minutes with your truest and most reliable friends: Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha. So what if they're fictional characters on a popular TV show? These four women are the manifestation of the life you dream of, with their designer clothes, expensive handbags and shoes, all of which cost more than your entire closet combined. Not to mention, their fabulous apartments, which are at least 10 times the size of anything you've ever seen, let alone in one of the most expensive cities on the planet.

It's like the riddle of the Sphinx. They have a friendship that borders on sisterhood. They frequently meet up for coffee, lunch, and of course, brunch, where they share the dirty and often hilarious details of their recent dates and sexual escapades. They're a group of women you can always count on. They're the pals that we all wish we had. The ones that grab post-work drinks on the regular, where you can gossip and laugh and support each other through the ups and downs of life in your 30s and 40s.

These are the kind of women that will always show up for you. And as you watch their stories unfold on screen, you get to decide which one represents you, like a future generation's Gryffindor or Hufflepuff. However, what happens if we pull back the curtain and get a good look at the reality of one of HBO's most popular series, Warts and All?

What happens is, we would discover that you, me, and everybody else watching so innocently, so happily, were being sold a lie. The reality is one of pettiness, greed, and stupid rivalry. It mirrors something usually experienced with the popular clique in your high school, or better yet, middle school. Only in this case, the pettiness could cost people millions of dollars. I wish them the best. I'll be the one in the audience cheering them on. Have you never really got on? We've never been friends.

I really think she could have been nicer. I don't know what her issue is. This is the story of Sarah Jessica Parker versus Kim Cattrall. I'm Bridget Todd, and this is Beef.

Running from 1998 until 2004, Sex and the City is one of the most popular HBO series of all time. It is also one of the most critically acclaimed, taking home numerous awards, which include eight Golden Globes, with two wins for Best Television Series, four Best Actress wins for Sarah Jessica Parker, and a Best Supporting Actress win for Kim Cattrall.

By the time Parker and Cottrell received these awards, they had already been working in show business for decades. Both actresses started their careers at a young age. Kim Cottrell began acting classes when she was 11 years old at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. She was born in Liverpool, England in 1956. However, the family moved to Canada shortly after, where her father worked as a construction engineer and her mother was a secretary.

The financial stability provided by her parents' jobs made it possible for her to travel back and forth between England and Canada several times. At 16, she left England and returned to Canada to finish high school while continuing to pursue her desire to act. She landed her first big break by winning a scholarship to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City.

Upon graduating, Cattrall quickly booked her first big acting gig, a five-picture deal with director Otto Preminger, known for movies like Anatomy of a Murder and The Man with the Golden Arm. This led to her landing roles in numerous television shows, such as Columbo, Starsky & Hutch,

Not yet, but I'm willing to work on it. And the Incredible Hulk. They've been here 30,000 years. They'll still be here when you get back. And from there, she transitioned to the silver screen pretty seamlessly. Her credits including Porky's... The boys' locker room.

Police Academy. The now cult classic Big Trouble in Little China. And even Star Trek VI. Parker's story is a bit different.

Born in an Ohio mining town in 1965, she was the fourth of eight children. Parker grew up in relative poverty, with the family having to rely on welfare and state aid for their survival. Parker has described her early childhood as "Dickensian," while saying that they frequently went without electricity in their home and rarely had the money to celebrate birthdays and Christmases.

Even with their dire financial circumstances, Parker had stated that her mother did her best to immerse her children in the arts. She often took them to free public performances of ballet, opera, and theater, all of which further developed Parker's desire to be a performer. Sending Parker off to an acting school wasn't remotely in the family's budget. But her mother was thrifty and managed to get her daughter acting lessons in exchange for her cleaning the theater school for free. And in the end, it paid off.

By the time Parker was 11, she had been performing on stage and bringing in money for the family. That then led them to relocate to New Jersey so she could be closer to New York City and the Broadway stage. This move proved fruitful with Parker getting her first big break playing the lead role in the Broadway musical Annie. Her big break in television came in 1982 when she landed the lead role in the show Square Pegs. No way, not even with cleavage.

Though the show only lasted one season, Parker's performance got the attention of casting directors. And in the next few years, she landed movie after movie with her most notable roles in "Footloose," "I don't believe this town." "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun," "Look, I think you're forgetting that I have General Patton as a father." and "Flight of the Navigator." "Who did you murder to keep put here in maximum security?"

Parker went on to share the screen with some of the biggest names of the day. I'm talking Steve Martin in "LA Story." There's this new restaurant. It's supposed to be really great. It's on Sunset. Nicolas Cage in "Honeymoon in Vegas." If you really wanted to marry me, you would have done it this afternoon! And Kathy Najimy in "Bette Midler in Hocus Pocus." Thou should not speak to master in such a manner.

So yes, Parker and Cattrall's successes in television and film had earned them resumes as long as a CVS receipt by the time our story begins. But nothing could prepare the two women for the fame and fortune which would come from booking a show about a sex columnist and her three best friends.

In 1998, after landing roles on Sex and the City, both women were rocketed to superstardom, bringing along their co-stars, Kristen Davis and Cynthia Nixon. The women's movement is supposed to be about choice. And if I choose to quit my job, that is my choice. The women's movement? Jesus Christ, I haven't even had coffee yet. The show became a smash hit, one that made HBO themselves and many other people and brands very rich in the process.

In fact, Bloomberg News media and entertainment editor Felix Gillette notes that the events that led to the creation of the show played a key role in HBO's history. Felix has written for the Columbia Journalism Review, The Village Voice, and The New York Observer. And he co-authored It's Not TV, The Spectacular Rise, Revolution, and Future of HBO. So HBO launched in 1972.

And for the first 25 years, they didn't really make TV series, right? Because when HBO initially launched, they decided, you know, we're going to call ourselves the home box office, HBO. And basically what we're going to give consumers, if you sign up and you subscribe to HBO, we'll give you access in your home to something that in...

any other situation you would have to go out and buy a ticket for in the world. And then in the mid 1990s, they made this very, very crucial decision, which is that they realized that no matter how good a concert was, no matter how great the Madonna concert that they put on, live Madonna concert, live Michael Jackson concert, no matter how great the standup comedy performance that they put on from, you know, Jerry Seinfeld, those were one-off events.

And then it was over and they'd be like, why am I still paying $10 a month for HBO? And so they would cancel. And at a certain point, they needed to go and start doing television series in a really big way.

as they were trying to decide, like, okay, how are we going to do things differently than broadcast television? We can't compete with them in terms of the money they spend, in terms of their sports programming they have. Like, what are we going to do differently? And very early on, one of the HBO executives said,

kind of had this idea. He said, well, you know, I think the broadcast networks, they skew their programming towards women because, you know, it's commercially supported. Advertisers want to reach women. So we're going to do things differently than the broadcast networks. You know what? Like, let's cater to men. Let's make a network that's very male oriented.

So they had boxing. They had kind of like late night programming that was, you know, sexually oriented, had a lot of nudity.

And then just basically through this coincidence, HBO ended up buying the rights to a movie from Demi Moore, If These Walls Could Talk. And they didn't really expect many people to watch it. They were thinking, ah, abortion, like no men are going to want to watch this. It's not a pleasant subject. But, you know, Demi Moore is this huge star. We want to be in business with her. So why not do it? It's not going to cost us a lot of money.

a huge number of people showed up to watch it on HBO.

And when they got the ratings, they were like, look at all these women that are watching this movie that's from a female perspective about a bunch of female characters. Why haven't we been doing this before? What's this whole thing? We're kind of ignoring 50% of the viewing audience. Does that make any sense? And within eight weeks, they'd gone out, scoured the landscape of everything that potentially could be developed, and they...

found Sex and the City, the book, which is just being published. And they decided this is the project we want.

Though HBO remains tight-lipped about exactly how much money the series brought in, the network has been willing to acknowledge that the number is in the hundreds of millions of dollars. This makes sense given the series finale alone brought in a whopping 10.6 million viewers. In fact, the franchise was so popular that it led to two hit movies and a recent HBO reboot that is... well, we'll talk about that later.

Based on the best-selling book by Candice Bushnell, Sex and the City chronicles the single life of New York City sex advice columnist Carrie Bradshaw, played by Sarah Jessica Parker, as well as that of her three closest friends, Miranda, played by Cynthia Nixon, Charlotte, played by Kristen Davis, and Samantha, played by Kim Cattrall. The hit show covered everything from bad sex to great sex, from work issues, family issues, health issues, pregnancy and infertility, infidelity, and

and of course, the latest fashion trends. Just think of an issue that a woman in her 30s and 40s might experience, and Sex and the City probably covered it in a smart, funny, and provocative way.

One of the most entertaining and enigmatic friendships on the show was undoubtedly that of the vivacious, confident, tell-it-like-it-is Samantha and the hopeless romantic wearing clothes that no one could afford at a newspaper columnist's salary, Carrie. "Three errant hairs and this asshole thinks I'm George of the jungle." "Oh, that's horrifying." "And you should see the bush on him. I need a weed whacker just to find his dick."

"Could you please keep it down? We're on the Upper East Side." The chemistry between on-screen stars was hard to ignore. Their charismatic personalities, sense of style, and ability to portray complicated characters that managed to be both empowered and vulnerable made the duo absolute standouts. "What's your age ceiling with men? Fifty? Factor in millions and millions of dollars."

Pop culture historian Jennifer Cation Armstrong says the relatively controversial nature of the show is what gave it its dynamic appeal. She's a former entertainment journalist and the author of Sex and the City and Us, How Four Single Women Changed the Way We Think, Live, and Love, as well as multiple other New York Times bestselling books on TV history.

So it really shows the power, I think, with the show in particular of that sort of water cooler thing that can happen, which is like people saying, oh my God, you won't believe what happened on this show. And I think that's what they were sort of going for and of course using their, you know, what they had, which is that you could show

nudity and sex and talk about sex and do whatever because there were not network standards and practices. They certainly said things that especially then, I think now if you go like watch them, we've since far past that kind of standard. So it doesn't seem that dirty. But yeah, like at that time, I mean, there is a pretty early episode about with a discussion about anal sex, you know, women were taught not to talk about this stuff.

And the only way you can get information about sex is to talk to other people. It's one of the few things. It's like, unless you watch porn, you don't see other people having sex, right? That's like kind of the joke of sex.

And so you have to talk to other people and talking to women, other women about it is great. And that's the only way you can kind of like be like, hey, I do this or this guy wants to do this. I don't know. You know, how else are you going to figure out things like consent? Right. If if you have to figure it out all alone or in the moment, it's like kind of this nice idea of going to the brunch table and being like, hey, this guy wants to do this thing like you done it. What's your experience?

I'm trying to figure out my own feelings about it. It was like adult sex ed, right? But real, like good sex ed as opposed to what mostly goes on in schools. So that is a huge part of this and that it just comes kind of at the right time. And, you know, it was pretty instantly a hit.

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This ad is brought to you by Charlotte Tilbury, USA customers only and valid until March 2nd, 2025. For full TNCs and exclusions, see the Charlotte Tilbury website. Though the characters are very different in their approach to love, sex, and style, their friendship has a quality that we all want. A friendship with a foundation of unflinching loyalty that's free of judgment, especially when it feels like the whole world is against you.

Case in point, in season three, Carrie confesses to Samantha that she's having an affair with her now-married ex-boyfriend, Mr. Big. Not only that, but Carrie is also cheating on her own boyfriend, the fan-adored Aiden. Samantha responds by telling Carrie that judging is not her style. And unlike the other women, and even the fans of the show, she accepts Carrie and even offers her support. "Don't beat yourself up. Aiden hasn't said 'I love you' yet until he does. You're a free agent." Pretty nice, right?

Yet the reality between the two actresses is filled to the brim with judgment. And as for loyalty, by the end of the series' run in 2004, it was virtually non-existent. Rumors had circulated for years about issues on set between the Sex and the City cast. But still, it seemed ludicrous to fans that HBO would cancel a show that was so profitable and had such a huge and devoted following.

So why would HBO end such a lucrative show after its sixth season? According to various sources, the answer was simple: Kim Cattrall wanted more money. When word of this hit the press, they had a field day, with the New York Post publishing an article purporting that the demise of the show was due to the wage gap between Sarah Jessica Parker and her co-stars, or rather, her co-star Kim Cattrall.

Though it's unclear exactly what the pay was during the first few seasons, by the fifth and sixth season, Parker was being paid a reported $3.2 million per episode. Cynthia Nixon, Kristen Davis, and Kim Cattrall, on the other hand, were reportedly each paid $350,000 an episode.

Now, of course, one can only imagine the rage building in Kim Cattrall as she rehearsed her lines and got into costume to film a single episode that paid her seven times the average American yearly income. But reportedly, this is exactly what caused the divide.

Judgment aside, you have to admit that Cattrall was smart in asking for more money, given the leverage she had. Her character, Samantha, was extremely popular and significantly contributed to the show's success. So it was time to play hardball. It was time to show the bigwigs at home box office entertainment that she meant business. According to reports, Cattrall told executives that she would do a seventh season if HBO paid her $1 million per episode. They said no. Therefore, so did she. ♪

With Sarah Jessica Parker's show being shelved, she probably had plenty of time to contemplate all that went wrong with negotiations, all while swimming in a giant pool of gold coins like Scrooge McDuck. But as sources would later point out, it wasn't just about the money. There was a factor poisoning the show more venomous than greed. That was jealousy.

Clifford Strite was the inspiration behind fan-favorite character Stanford Blatch, Carrie's prototypical sassy gay friend hilariously played by the late Willie Garrison. Every gay guy I know is running off to Hawaii, putting on a caftan, reciting vows and feeling superior to me. In 2008, Clifford reportedly tried to sell a book proposal, which would serve as a bit of a tell-all as to what the dynamic was really like between the women on set.

Strite described Cattrall as a natural comedian and a scene-stealer in the best possible sense. The camera went right to her.

Apparently, this didn't sit well with Sarah Jessica, who was supposed to be the star of the show. After all, she was the one on all the billboards, right? Strite claimed that it was this supposed jealousy that caused Parker to do things offscreen to alienate and ostracize Cattrall. Things like forming her own little clique with fellow cast members Cynthia Nixon and Kristen Davis. Does high school ever end?

Apparently, not for these ladies. Stride claimed that the Parker-Nixon-Davis clique would pull mean girl stunts on Cattrall, like renting a house together when filming in Atlantic City and leaving Kim out. In 2017, the New York Post published an article entitled, Inside the Mean Girl's Culture That Destroyed Sex in the City. Inside the Mean Girl's Culture

In it, the author notes that the separation between Cattrall and her co-stars was there from the beginning. Parker and Nixon previously knew each other during their time as Broadway actresses before Sex and the City and included Davis in their group. Some speculate that the division was also aided by the fact that at the time of the series' premiere, Kim Cattrall was a more established Hollywood actress than Parker, Nixon, and Davis.

She had starred in an Oscar-nominated film, as well as several other hit movies. And Cattrall was also older than the other actresses, which may have given her an air of superiority as well. With the rumored mean girl behavior on set, Cattrall was able to find friendship and support from the series creator and producer Darren Starr. That is, until after only two seasons, Starr left the show and was replaced by Sarah Jessica Parker's friend, Michael Patrick King.

With Star's departure, not only was Cattrall left to fend for herself with her relationships on set, but also in business.

As one of Kim's few friends made his exit, Sarah Jessica Parker was promoted to producer and received a raise. When asked about how she became a producer on the show, in 2019, Parker said that she was approached by Sex and the City creator Darren Star. According to Parker, Star said, "'You should be a producer!' To which she recounted her reply was, "'I don't know anything. I've never produced television.'" And he said, "'Then just learn. For the first year, just come to all the production meetings and just learn.'"

About the new role as a producer, Parker is also quoted as saying, "I think that working so closely with fellow producer Michael Patrick King, you just learn the business of producing, which involves numbers and budgets and unions and interpersonal relationships and complicated people and easy people." Interpersonal relationships and complicated people and easy people. I guess that's one way of putting it.

Word got back to Cattrall, and according to reports, she began negotiating for more money. This action apparently didn't sit well with the other women, who reportedly started to avoid her. They also supposedly implemented bullying tactics like sitting together at meals and leaving Kim out.

It all seems to play out like a scene in a teen movie, with the popular crew versus the new kid, the nerd, or whoever they choose to target. Only in this case, we aren't talking about teenagers. We're talking about grown women in their 30s, and in Cattrall's case, 40s. Still, it's hard to believe that such a megalith of a show could be taken down by the most childish and pettiest of human traits.

It's a real power dynamic shift that happens often in the first, second season of successful TV shows. And for the networks, it then becomes a problem that gets more and more exacerbated the longer a show goes on, the more successful it is, which is that

The cast of the show has an incredible amount of leverage with each passing season to ask for more money, to ask for more perks, to ask for more screen time, to have more control over the scripts. And I think that's why shows get more and more expensive the longer they go on. It makes it harder for the network to keep the cast happy, to keep the cast coming back.

you know, these things turn ugly if you don't really give the star what they want. And I think in terms of Sex and the City, Sarah Jessica Parker was so beloved by the Sex and the City fan base, she was critically acclaimed.

and that gave her a lot of power. Did she ask for anything really crazy? No, as time went on, she wanted to have more control over the show, more control over her character, and she used that leverage to get production credits, get a producer credit, and inevitably,

that creates a little bit of friction downstream with the other cast members. Why is this person getting this? Like, why am I not getting that? And that exists on every single TV show that's ever been made. It just, you know, jockeying over who's top of the call sheet. You know, there's always little petty disputes that come up. It's just for a hit show like Sex and the City,

the money and the power and the impact just magnifies all of those disputes and pours gasoline on them.

Parker, of course, has consistently denied the allegations of a rift between her and Cattrall, addressing the rumors to the British periodical, The Telegraph, saying, Then, responding to questions regarding salary demands made by Cattrall over the years, Parker stated,

Basically, she claims the public, those loyal fans sitting at home with popcorn and cosmopolitans, had conjured Cattrall's ostracization out of thin air. According to Parker, she and the other actresses would never do such a thing.

Regardless of whether or not on-set issues were the cause of it, the television series came to an end. But the success of the show soon led to the announcement that there would be a Sex and the City movie. After years of living in the city, I assumed that if my friends and I ever got our fairy tale endings, that would be the end of the story. Hello. Welcome home, baby.

This, of course, delighted fans around the world. However, it didn't delight all the members of the cast. More specifically, it didn't delight one member of the cast. Can you guess who? That's right, Kim Cattrall, who said, "No." A few years later, she changed her mind and agreed to do the movie, yet rumors still circulated as to why she had the sudden change of heart.

In 2008, Cattrall addressed these rumors, saying, "Four years ago, I was going through a painful public divorce. The series was coming to an end, and my father was diagnosed with dementia. I felt it was time to be with my real family. A year and a half ago, when I was sent the script, I was ready and strong enough to revisit 'Samantha.' In some ways, I'm glad we waited. The script and the experience of making the movie was the best possible reunion."

And this reunion, believe it or not, raked in $419 million at the box office, a hefty chunk of which went to Parker, who was not only the movie's star, but also, once again, one of its producers.

Even with all the cash it raked in for its stars and the many luxury products and brands egregiously featured throughout the film, shooting it wasn't easy. Issues between Cattrall and Parker allegedly became so petty that the stars were fighting over outfits because each coveted the other's costumes. Sources say it was incredibly uncomfortable on set, with the actresses being, once again, no longer on speaking terms. Not just during shooting, but during meals and even in the makeup chairs.

However, like each other or not, money talks, and it also gets people to act. So when a second movie was announced and slated for 2010, the two actresses both made an attempt to squash the rumors. Sarah Jessica Parker told the popular women's magazine Elle, I don't think anyone wants to believe that I love Kim. I adore her. I wouldn't have done the movie without her. Didn't and wouldn't.

Couture responded to Parker's interview saying, "I think Sarah was right. People want to believe that we don't get on. They have too much invested in this idea of two strong, successful women fighting with each other. It makes for juicy gossip and copy. The truth of us being friends and getting along and happily doing our jobs together is nowhere near as newsworthy. I think Sarah is fantastic. She is a born leader and she guides the crew and cast in such a strong but gentle way. She and I are sick of this. It's exhausting talking about it and a real bore."

Cynthia Nixon chimed in saying, "It hasn't always been smooth sailing, but the idea that we're somehow adversarial is ludicrous." And Kristen Davis even addressed the rumors circulating about the other women not sharing meals with Cattrall. She claimed she ate room service in her hotel room. That's why she never joined Kim for a bite to eat.

so it appeared that all of the castmates were falling into line. But as you might guess, that was about as fabricated as the high-society-living, cosmo-sipping, sexually-liberated fashionistas they played on the show. However nice these statements may have seemed, the "everyone is the best of friends" routine didn't last long.

In 2017, the Daily Mail reported that the third Sex and the City movie was canceled due to outrageous demands made by Kim Cattrall. The article stated, quote, "'Warner Brothers' had given the much-anticipated project the green light after months of speculation, and the movie was supposed to start filming in the coming days. However, the studio can no longer move ahead as Cattrall, 61, demanded they produce other movies she had in development or she wouldn't sign up for the project."

In response, Cattrall tweeted that her only demand was not to do the movie. Parker was reportedly devastated. Cattrall had sidelined her cash cow yet again, pumping the brakes on a franchise that peddled an increasingly unrealistic view of single life in New York City. Though sources claimed Cattrall didn't do the movie because her demands were not met, she had another story. The answer was simply, thank you, but no.

I'm good. This isn't about more money. It's not about more scenes. It's not about any of those things. This is about a clear decision, an empowered decision in my life to end one chapter and start another. It's a great part. I played it past the finish line and then some, and I loved it.

And another actress should play it. Maybe they could make it an African-American. When Piers Morgan interviewed Cattrall in 2017, he asked her if she was friends with her co-stars, to which she said they have never been friends. She also said regarding the third movie and reports that she wanted more money. This is really where I take to task the people from Sex and the City and specifically Sarah Jessica Parker, is that I think she could have been nicer.

I really think she could have been nicer. I don't know what her issue is. She's never taken anything back. She's been clear. You know, whenever she's asked about this stuff, she's like, "I don't want to be involved." Both in terms of probably not wanting to work with these same people and also just not wanting to keep playing this character, which is totally reasonable.

And I always also say to people, like, can you imagine if you, the best job of your life or like most successful job of your life was however many years that is and the better part of a decade. And you got through it and you worked with these people you didn't necessarily love. And we've all been there. And then it's over and you're like, it's over. It's great. I'm done. And then people just keep hounding you. When are you going to go back and work with those people again?

So, you know, I can totally I can understand how essentially like your antipathy with another person, which is totally normal to have, becomes this other thing when it's public and it's constant. Like you do some beautiful movie that you're so proud of and you go out to promote it.

And all anyone wants to ask you is, "Cool, but when are you going to work with that person you don't like that much anymore?" One would think the story would end here. Spoiler alert: it doesn't. As all feuds have a way of doing nowadays, the feud between Parker and Cattrall spilled over onto social media. Especially when, in 2018, the internet was ablaze with speculation following reports of a tragedy.

Sadly, Kim Cattrall's 55-year-old brother died by apparent suicide in Canada. Parker, in a visible attempt at burying a most certainly bedazzled and fabulous hatchet, wrote condolences on Cattrall's Instagram page, writing, Dear Kim, my love and condolences to you and yours, and Godspeed to your beloved brother, XX.

When asked about her decision to comment, despite the feud, Parker told Entertainment Tonight, "If somebody in your life, whether you're in touch with them or not, is suffering for any reason, it's involuntary that you want to convey condolences or sadness or just let someone know you're thinking about them." Cattrall didn't take it as a nice gesture.

She then took to Instagram and slammed Parker for exploiting her brother's death. She wrote, "My mom asked me today, 'When will that @sarahdesicaparker, that hypocrite, leave you alone?' Your continuous reaching out is a painful reminder of how cruel you really were then and now. Let me make this very clear if I haven't already. You are not my family. You are not my friend. So I'm writing to tell you one last time to stop exploiting our tragedy in order to restore your nice girl persona."

Parker commented again about her relationship with Cattrall at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival, omitting any reference to the Instagram debacle.

I'd just like to remind everybody that there is no catfight, she told Vulture at the premiere of Blue Night. I have never uttered an unkind, unsupportive, unfriendly word, so I would love to redefine it. I've always held Kim's work in high regard and always appreciative of her contributions. If she chooses not to do the third movie, there's not a lot I can do to change her mind, and we must respect it. That's the only thing I've ever said about it, you know?"

In August of 2019, when she was asked again about her decision not to do a third movie, Cattrall told The Guardian that she, quote, "...went past the finish line playing Samantha Jones because I loved Sex and the City. It was a blessing in so many ways, but after the second movie, I'd had enough. I couldn't understand why they wouldn't just replace me with another actress instead of wasting time bullying. No means no."

Fast forward two years to 2021. The public's craving for cosmopolitans at a poorly written show about a group of middle-aged women who wear designer clothes and talk about sex hits hard. Right? Nope. But nonetheless, it's time for that refill you never ordered.

HBO announced they would be rebooting Sex and the City, only it wouldn't be called Sex and the City. It would be called And Just Like That. I didn't feel comfortable blurting this out. Blurring what out? I can't sneak around anymore. Back up. Back the truck up. And, surprise, surprise, it was soon announced that the series would go on without Cattrall playing fan favorite Samantha, and of course, stealing every scene she shared with Parker. We're having

With no need to negotiate Cattrall's salary, the network was able to easily write up contracts for all three of the remaining stars. Each would go home with a $1 million per episode paycheck for the show's 10-episode run. But would the franchise really work without Samantha and all of her je ne sais quoi?

Not really. Right from the get-go, the reviews, like Locus, began to swarm on Rotten Tomatoes, with half-star after half-star review, earning season one of And Just Like That a measly 33% audience approval rating. Not quite a passing grade. One reviewer wrote, When you find yourself visibly cringing and muting a show, you know it's terrible. This is unwatchable.

Another wrote, everything about the series is a farce and Kim Cattrall was smart to stay far away. And my personal favorite reads, and just like crap. I do think this is such a great example of like why I get mad about reboots. I understand that it's just too hard to leave money on the table and that it's a hard landscape and that reboots, you know, they're familiar. So people will watch. And I think of, I would also say in their defense, because I've thought about this a lot, that reboots

They probably found that it's really, you know, it's not easy to find great roles for women in their 50s. And so I can understand going back to the best role that you ever had. But it's such a bummer because I think a show like this had something very important to say in its time. And it doesn't now. So it is not being driven by...

you know, a real, like, this is something that needs to be talked about feeling. Now they're just like obscenely wealthy on the show, right? Like they've gone from like kind of doing okay to just,

It's about a group of outrageously wealthy people at a maybe not opportune time for that. They are more diverse. So more diverse people are also mind-bogglingly wealthy with them. So that's cool. But yeah, it just doesn't have something vital to say. Whereas the original felt crucial to women like me, many, many women, and men too, watching that show and feeling like, oh my God, this is doing and saying something that I haven't seen before and that I've wanted.

You know, it wasn't just about shoes, which many people think. This really was about the friendships and relationships and relationships

I'm sure we had spurts of glamorous single women, but overall there was this single woman idea of like, think of Bridget Jones. That was right around that same time. And we love her. I loved her. I loved all the Bridget Jones books and movies, but she was definitely not depicted as like, oh, it's so cool and glamorous to be single. It was still this very sort of like sad, oh my God, I have to get out of this

idea, which was very common. But it is too bad in terms of the legacy, because I think, I hope we can remember just like what this did. And you know, you can't take it away to some extent, because it had an effect, right? We have all the shows that came after it, that looked to it for the parts of it that they liked, that were good to model. And so, you know, you get...

girls and Broad City and Insecure and all these other things. And it did change the way we see single women. You can't take that away because it happened in real time. Would negative reviews and feedback be enough to kill the Sex and the City juggernaut? Of course not. And just like that, the second season was greenlit.

In an interview with Variety in May of 2022, Cattrall was asked to share her thoughts on the new show, to which she revealed that she hadn't watched And Just Like That. In the same interview, when she was asked for the umpteenth time if she was ever friends with her co-stars, Cattrall responded, I guess it's how you define friends. I think we were colleagues. My colleagues aren't my friends. It was professional.

So where does this all stand now? Is that it? Is Cattrall done for good? Of course not. That's right, because in 2023, the unthinkable happened. Although, given the history, at this point, it's pretty damn predictable. It was announced that Cattrall would be joining the floundering and just like that to reprise her role as Samantha for the season two finale. Although briefly, very, very briefly.

According to another article published in Variety, sources told the magazine that Cattrall shot her dialogue on March 22nd in New York City without seeing or speaking with the stars of the series, including Sarah Jessica Parker or with and just like that showrunner, Michael Patrick King. And it was noted that Cattrall's appearance as Samantha will not be a continuation for the character for now. Key words, for now.

When the final episode of season two aired, audiences braced themselves for the moment they'd all been waiting for, and Kim Cattrall, as the beloved Samantha, appeared on screen speaking with Carrie over the phone. Who's Samantha? This is Annabelle Bronstein. I'm from Injop. Tar and Cheerio. And have a great night. Tar. Bye.

The entire scene lasts a whopping 71 seconds. That's it. 71 seconds of airtime, which reportedly earned Kim Cattrall a hefty $1.69 million. And, well, just like that, that's sort of where it all lies. Lies is another key word here. Lies are really what this billion-dollar franchise was built upon, weren't they?

Lies that have lent themselves to women maxing out credit cards for designer duds and limping on damaged arches from ridiculously expensive Manolo Blahnik stilettos. Lies that have led to the creation of Sex and the City: Tourism. Oh yeah, you heard right. For 12 grand, women come from all over the world just to experience one night of being shuttled around New York City, all dressed up, while they pretend that they too are living the lie that is Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda.

And then, of course, there's the biggest lie of them all: the illusion of true and unbridled friendship. HBO became known so much for the male antihero, you know? Tony Soprano, Al Swearinger from Deadwood. These kind of like evil, violent male characters that kind of have this tender side beneath them.

you know, that became the archetype that HBO was known for. And of course, Sex and the City wasn't that, right? And so I think in some ways people minimize its success and its impact and its creativity and its novelty. But in reality, if you go back and look at Sex and the City's impact,

It became kind of a lightning rod for all these debates about marriage, love, professional success.

And it had a big impact on everything from the fashion in Sex and the City, having Patricia Field, who was the costume designer for the show. She had so much credibility in New York fashion world. And the cupcake revival, martini fests, the cosmopolitan, what people were wearing, what they were eating, what they were drinking.

When HBO put Sex and the City on the air, they really weren't expecting it to do that well. They thought, well, it's about New York City, it's about professional women in New York City. Yeah, maybe some women will watch it, you know, cosmopolitan audiences, but like, is it, you know, they were worried it was going to be alienating to audiences in, you know, Cleveland, Ohio, Dallas, Texas.

And it turns out that the opposite was true. There was this incredible aspirational aspect of Sex and the City. I think that's also part of the reason that people minimize it is because, oh, like, yeah, sure, telling stories about professional women talking about their sex lives, like, it doesn't seem as novel now than it really was when the show debuted in 1998.

Beef is a production of Next Chapter Podcasts. This episode is written by Nicole Walcalbinetti, with support from our senior producers, James Levine and Ben Austin-Docampo. Our editor, sound designer, and showrunner is Pete Musto. Our executive producer is show creator Jeremiah Tittle. Don't forget to subscribe to, rate, and review our show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps us get the word out. I'm Bridget Todd. Thanks for listening to Beef, and remember to stay petty. Who knows how far it'll take you?

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