Sex and the City first aired a full 26 years ago, and after you read Sarah Jessica Parker’s comments about the classic show—which just had its big Netflix debut on April 1—you may never think about it the same way again.
Parker is the star of the show, playing columnist Carrie Bradshaw alongside her three close friends Samantha Jones (played by Kim Cattrall), Miranda Hobbs (Cynthia Nixon), and Charlotte York-Goldenblatt (Kristin Davis). The four women “navigate careers, friendship, and romance against the backdrop of New York City,” Bustle writes. Relatively simple enough, right? Well, Parker couldn’t help but wonder…(see what we did there?) if the characters of Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte even existed at all, or the three were just figments of Carrie’s imagination the whole time.
“Think about it,” Parker said in a 2019 interview. “She’s telling a story every week. This is her point of view, it’s almost always her point of view.” True—Sex and the City episodes are nearly always narrated by Carrie.
Parker pointed in particular to the series finale, “An American Girl in Paris,” where Carrie moves to the city for love, leaving New York City, her friends, and her trusted computer behind. “When Carrie went to Paris and left her computer, for the first time Carrie wasn’t telling the story,” Parker said. “She left her computer, which was the conduit [through] which the audiences know about Charlotte, Miranda, and Samanda. Sometimes I’m like, ‘hmmm,’ just to mess with myself.”
Per Bustle, this theory actually “popped up on Reddit about a decade ago, where many fans agreed that the women might only exist in Carrie’s mind,” the outlet writes. Now that all six of the show’s seasons are on Netflix, this theory might require a rewatch from a completely different interpretation…
