By Katherine Tinsley
2:50pm PDT, Jul 17, 2025
_
Sarah Jessica Parker, who was a guest on
Bowen Yang and
Matt Rogers' "Las Culturistas" podcast, discussed the online commentary about her iconic character.
"I'm not privy to all of the chatter so I'm just —
Kristin Davis always keeps me posted in ways that sometimes I'm like, 'You don't have to tell me that! I don't want to hear what anyone has to say,'" Parker said while discussing Carrie Bradshaw's mistakes with her costar. "Plus it doesn't help me. But I'm thrilled that people have feelings! Like, how great."
_
Carrie Bradshaw's love life centered around Aidan and Mr. Big, as the leading lady cheated on the former with the latter. However,
Sarah Jessica Parker has a nuanced view when it comes to Carrie's choices.
"I mean, she's a fictional character. I think people make mistakes and smart people do stupid things, and they use poor judgment and they fall really short often. The best of us fall short," Parker said.
_
Matt Rogers claimed Carrie Bradshaw experienced "narcissistic abuse" at the hands of her husband, Mr. Big, throughout the series.
Sarah Jessica Parker said "those are new words for me," but "if Carrie Bradshaw were somebody who was absolutely reliable to resist in that instance the temptation of Big … then I'm not entirely sure — what is the show?"
_
Sarah Jessica Parker later reminded the hosts that the series is fictional.
"Who is this person if she is only making really solid, predictable choices?" Parker asked, noting that the show is "not a recipe for all of us to live by. That's what makes it. It's like there's an altered state to
S** and the City."
"It's not entirely, the emotional life is rooted in truth, but its existence has always felt to me like slightly technicolor, slightly altered," she continued. "Like, the city looks like this, and the clothes look like this. There's a time warp, like, time suspends and you can be with people you love for long periods of time, which does not exist for all of us, no matter how much we love our friends. And love has this sort of, like, extra dose of some kind of adrenaline-fueled … You don't spend time on HBO being perfect."
_
On the flip side,
Sarah Jessica Parker said people aren't as critical of fictional mobster Tony Soprano, who was portrayed by
James Gandolfini, from
The Sopranos."That is not a man who made great choices. But it's curious how many people did not interrogate those same things about him, nor should they have because it was just beautiful writing and it brought us into the life of someone we wouldn't normally feel such compassion for," Parker stated. "So I'm not comparing, I'm just saying it's curious how little tolerance we have for a woman falling short, let's just say."
_
Sarah Jessica Parker later highlighted Carrie Bradshaw's redeemable qualities.
"I admired that she was scrappy," she said about Carrie Bradshaw. "She was a little survivor. She had instincts to keep her head [up], not always making smart choices and falling short of being the best friend or the best girlfriend or her best self, but I also was very happy that they were writing her that way."
