Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Marie Claire
Marie Claire
Lifestyle
Rachel Burchfield

Candace Bushnell, Real-Life Carrie Bradshaw, Is Creating a Reality Dating Show for Women in their 50s

Candace Bushnell.

Author and journalist Candace Bushnell has had success in television in the past—a column she once wrote for The New York Observer called Sex and the City was made into a show on HBO you may have heard of—but now Bushnell is moving into a new lane: an unscripted dating show.

Variety reports that the unscripted dating show is in development and will be based off of Sex and the City, which was first a column and then a book comprised of the columns, which ran from 1994 to 1996. The HBO series with Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon, and Kristin Davis ran from 1998 to 2004, and Bushnell is the real-life Carrie Bradshaw, played by Parker. Bushnell invented the Carrie character as her alter ego while writing the column. 

(Image credit: Getty Images)

The new dating show is in development at Bunim/Murray, Variety reports, the same production company behind reality shows like The Real World, Road Rules, Project Runway, and Keeping Up with the Kardashians. It will be titled Is There Still Sex in the City?, which is also the title of Bushnell’s 2019 book about her experience of dating post-divorce in her fifties. (Bushnell was married from 2002 to 2012 to Charles Askegard, a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet who was 10 years her junior.)

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Per Variety, “the program will follow four friends in their fifties as they navigate the immersive dating experience in a ‘love do-over,’ where they trade their busy city lives for a ‘dating utopia.’” The logline of the show reads “They’ll live together in a cozy country chateau where they’ll have their pick of a different group of men in each episode. They’ll try the boy toys, sample a senior age player, be romanced by the rich guys, and even get to flirt with their fantasy man. But in the end, who will really steal their hearts, and will our ladies be able to bring the sex back to the city?”

Bunim/Murray will begin shopping the series out to potential buyers next month.

(Image credit: Getty Images)
(Image credit: Getty Images)

“Fifty-something women (and above) are the hottest new dating demographic, and I should know, I am one of them,” Bushnell said. “Over the decades, I’ve dated men of all ages, and I’m so excited to be working on a show that combines my passion for relationships with the chance to help women, like me, navigate a love do-over.”

(Image credit: Getty Images)

In addition to Sex and the City, Bushnell has written eight other books, most of them fiction. Two of them, Lipstick Jungle and The Carrie Diaries, became network TV series on NBC and The CW, respectively. In addition to the forthcoming dating show, Bushnell will take her one-woman show “True Tales of Sex, Success, and Sex and the City” to England, Italy, and Canada in 2024.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.