List of Sex and the City characters
Sex and the City is an American cable television program based on the book of the same name by Candace Bushnell. It was originally broadcast on the HBO network from 1998 until 2004. Set in New York City, the show focuses on the sex lives of four female best friends, three of whom are in their mid-to-late thirties, and one of whom is in her forties. Along with these four women, there were numerous minor and recurring characters, including their current and ex-boyfriends/husbands/lovers, as well as many cameo appearances. A follow-up series And Just Like That... began in 2022 with many of the same characters, and some new characters also listed below.
There are also the film adaptations Sex and the City: The Movie and Sex and the City 2.
Main characters
Carrie Bradshaw
Carrie Bradshaw, is the literal voice of the show, as each episode is structured around her train of thought while writing her weekly column, "Sex and the City", for the fictitious newspaper, The New York Star. A member of the New York glitterati, she is a club/bar/restaurant staple known for her unique fashion sense, yoking together various styles into one outfit. A self-proclaimed shoe fetishist, she focuses most of her attention and finances on designer footwear, primarily Manolo Blahnik, though she has been known to wear Christian Louboutin and Jimmy Choo. She often goes on shopping sprees, and pays much attention to her evolving and bold dress style, which is not fettered by professional dress codes. Although her only income is from her freelance weekly newspaper column, she often overspends her limit and maxes out her credit card in a single shopping trip. To some viewers, her lack of shoe-shopping self-control and overall seemingly immature spending might be a flaw, and her money management misadventures follow her through a few episodes. However, her priorities are later brought into perspective when she is forced to buy her once rent-controlled apartment to avoid moving out when the building goes co-op; she acquires a mortgage by supplementing her income with other writing assignments, and takes a sizeable loan from Charlotte in the form of Charlotte's engagement ring to Trey. Her apartment is her home for the entire series and is another source of pride; it is an open-planned studio in an Upper East Side brownstone that is enviable for its stabilized rent, space, large closet, and good location. She eventually purchases back the apartment from Aidan in the fourth season. In later seasons, her essays are collected as a book, and she begins taking assignments from other publications, like Vogue and New York, as well.Charlotte York
Charlotte York, is an art dealer and graduate of Smith College with a wealthy Connecticut blue-blooded upbringing. She is the most conservative and traditional of the group, the one who places the most emphasis on emotional love as opposed to lust, and is always searching for her "knight in shining armor". As the youngest of the group, she is also the most idealistic about romance and love. Presenting a more straightforward attitude about relationships, usually based on "the rules" of love and dating, she often scoffs at the lewder, more libertine antics that the show presents, but despite her conservative outlook, she makes concessions that even surprise her sexually freer girlfriends. She gives up her career soon after her first marriage, divorces upon irreconcilable differences around in vitro fertilization and receives a Park Avenue apartment in the divorce settlement. She eventually remarries to her less than perfect, but good-hearted divorce lawyer, Harry Goldenblatt, after converting to Judaism. In the final episode, they adopt a daughter from China, Lily, and in the first movie, Charlotte gives birth to daughter Rose, with Harry proclaiming, "now we have a Lily and a Rose!".Miranda Hobbes
Miranda Hobbes, is a career-minded lawyer with extremely cynical views on relationships and men. A Harvard University graduate from Philadelphia, she is Carrie's confidante and voice of reason. In the early seasons, she is portrayed as masculine and borderline misandric, but this image softens over the years, particularly after she becomes pregnant by her on again-off again boyfriend, Steve Brady, whom she eventually marries. The birth of her son, Brady, brings up new issues for her Type A, workaholic personality, but she soon finds a way to balance career, being single and motherhood. Of the four women, she is the first to purchase an apartment,, which she leaves in the final season to move to a larger home in Brooklyn with Steve and Brady.Samantha Jones
Samantha Jones, the oldest of the group, is an independent publicist and a seductress who avoids emotional involvement at all costs, while satisfying every possible carnal desire imaginable. She believes that she has had "hundreds" of soulmates and insists that her sexual partners leave "an hour after I climax." In Season 3, she moves from her full-service Upper East Side apartment to an expensive loft in the then-burgeoning Meatpacking District. Over the course of the show, she does have a handful of real relationships, but they are more unconventional than those of her friends, including a lesbian relationship with Brazilian painter played by Sonia Braga.Significant others
Significant others of Carrie Bradshaw
Mr. Big
John James "Mr. Big" Preston is Carrie's central relationship. They first meet in season one but then have a nasty break up because he doesn't say what she wants to hear. In season two they start to date again but it, again, ends badly due to Mr. Big moving to Paris with work and not telling Carrie until a few days prior. When Big returns, Carrie discovers that, whilst in Paris, he got engaged to a 25-year-old woman named Natasha, whom he later married. In season 3 she meets Aidan Shaw who she cheats on with Big while he is still with Natasha. They broke up when Natasha fell chasing Carrie and hurt her mouth. Two years later Big moved to Napa but called Carrie from time to time. Six years after they first met, Carrie was in Paris with [|Aleksandr Petrovsky] when Big declares his love for her. He finds her in the hotel after her fight with Aleksandr and they go back to New York together.Four years later, in the first film, they became engaged and Big buys Carrie a large penthouse. At the wedding, he backs out at the last minute, leaving Carrie devastated. A couple of months later, they reconcile when she discovers romantic emails written by him that Louise, her assistant, put in a special folder. She rushed to their penthouse to find Big and they reconciled. Carrie and Big have a small, modest wedding and met her best friends for lunch afterwards.
Two years later, they moved to a more modest but still luxurious apartment in the same building.
Aidan Shaw
Aidan Shaw is one of Carrie's long-term boyfriends. He is a good-natured furniture designer who runs his own business, and Mr. Big's emotional opposite. At first, Carrie questions their seemingly perfect relationship, but over time accepts his sincerity. However, Aidan ends their relationship after Carrie confesses her affair with Big. They get back together six months later at Carrie's urging, eventually moving in together. When her apartment building goes co-op, he buys her apartment and the adjoining apartment to combine them into a single shared home. When Carrie finds an engagement ring among Aidan's belongings, she does not like the design and throws up at the prospect of marriage. When Aidan proposes, Carrie is shocked to see a completely different ring. As it turns out, Samantha helped Aidan choose a more beautiful, appealing ring, much to Carrie's delight. Despite her initial misgivings, she accepts his marriage proposal. Carrie then becomes panicked and feels suffocated by the relationship, and Aidan realizes he still does not fully trust Carrie, given her past affair with Big, and they break up for good. A year later, they met on the street, right before her date with a new flame, Jack Berger. It is revealed that Aidan has married Kathy, a fellow furniture designer, and has a son, Tate.In Sex and the City 2, six years later, Carrie runs into Aidan in Abu Dhabi at a market where he is buying samples for his furniture company. They resolve to meet for dinner to catch up. Aidan reveals that he and Kathy are still happily married. In a moment of passion, they kiss. Carrie stops herself and runs away.
In And Just Like That..., Carrie learns that Aidan lives in Virginia and has divorced Kathy. Carrie contacts Aidan, and he travels to New York City, and they begin dating again. He refuses to enter Carrie's apartment because it rekindles memories of their previous failed relationship and his attempt to turn it into a shared home. Carrie sells her apartment and purchases a townhouse in Gramercy Park to host Aidan and his sons when they visit New York, but after one of Aidan's sons injures himself in a car accident after a fight with Kathy, he tells Carrie he needs to return to Virginia to be there for his sons during their teenage years, but tells her they'll start dating again in five years.