Writer Candace Bushnell — the inspiration behind “Sex and the City” icon Carrie Bradshaw — has finally given some insight into how the character was able to afford her designer clothes, luxury apartment and pricey cosmopolitans.
Bushnell, 63, disclosed her journalist’s salary that she made back in the 1990s, putting an end to the yearslong chatter and confusion about Carrie’s finances.
The New York native worked as a columnist for the New York Observer and as a writer for Vogue during the decade of “Friends” mania, dark lipstick and denim everything.
“In the nineties, for me — it was a real time for media. I worked for ‘Vogue,’ writing the ‘People Are Talking About’ column, and got paid $5,000 a month,” Bushnell explained in a profile for the New Yorker.
“The ‘Observer’ paid less, but I could afford that, because of ‘Vogue.’ I mean, this was a time that writers were getting a ‘Vanity Fair’ contract for six pieces and $250,000 dollars a year,” she continued. “People valued writing; it wasn’t considered something everyone can do. Now, because of the computer, everyone has to do it, so we think everyone can
do it.”
Bushnell turned her Observer column entitled “Sex and the City” into a book in 1996 and it was made into an HBO sitcom of the same name two years later.
Her “SATC” universe expanded into the 2013 CW prequel series “The Carrie Diaries,” two blockbuster movies and the 2021 HBO Max sequel show “And Just Like That.”
“And Just Like That” follows Carrie and friends Miranda Hobbes and Charlotte York as they navigate life, love and career in their 50s.
In the same New Yorker piece, Bushnell also gave her thoughts about the follow-up series.
“I’m really startled by a lot of the decisions made in the reboot,” she noted. “You know, it’s a television product, done with [director] Michael Patrick King and [star] Sarah Jessica Parker, who have both worked with HBO a lot in the past. HBO decided to put this franchise back into their hands for a variety of reasons, and this is what they came up with.”
When asked if she saw herself in the new series, she admitted, “Not at all. I mean, Carrie Bradshaw ended up being a quirky woman who married a really rich guy. And that’s not my story, or any of my friends’ stories. But TV has its own logic.”