Catfight in the city
Kim slays Sarah Jessica
For t two decades, Sex and the City co-stars Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Cattrall have denied reports that they can’t stand being in the same room as each other. But the cat’s finally out of the bag – and its claws are out! Last week, Kim, who played sexpot Samantha Jones on the hit TV show, was reeling from the sudden death of her younger brother Chris, 55, and was thanking fans and colleagues for their kindness on social media. However, when she received a message of condolence from Sarah Jessica, 52, who played the show’s lead Carrie Bradshaw, the temperature dropped to below freezing. “My mom asked me today, ‘When will that @sarahjessicaparker, that hypocrite, leave you alone?’” Kim responded. “Your continuous reaching out is a painful reminder of how cruel you really were then and now. Let me make this VERY clear (if I haven’t already). You are not my family. You are not my friend. So I’m writing to tell you one last time to stop exploiting our tragedy in order to restore your ‘nice girl’ persona.”
She then linked her post to a 2017 newspaper story headlined, “Inside the mean-girls culture that destroyed SexandtheCity.”
Grieving Kim’s outburst shocked the showbiz world and fans alike, but insiders say it was simply a case of the truth finally emerging in a time when the actress’ defences were down.
Almost as soon as the Emmy Award-winning show kicked off in 1998, whispers circulated that tensions were rising between Kim, 61, and Sarah Jessica. “By the time they started filming the second season, they hated each other,” an insider confides.
Startreatment
At stake, says the insider, was status and money. As the show’s “big star”, Sarah Jessica was paid twice as much as Kim, although the other actresses – Cynthia Nixon (Miranda) and Kristin Davis (Charlotte) – were paid even less.
Like Ms Parker, Kim had a Hollywood career before Sexand
theCity, but she pushed for all four leads to be paid the same, a policy that had worked well for long-running sitcom Friends.
Instead, Sarah Jessica became an executive producer, pushing her pay into the stratosphere compared to her co-stars. Kim asked for executive-producer
status too but was never given it. Other issues also began to arise. It rankled Kim that she was often required to bare all for the cameras, while Sarah Jessica was allowed to keep her bra on.
In 2002, tensions became even worse when Kim reportedly let slip in a meeting that Cynthia had suffered a miscarriage and was planning another pregnancy.
“Cynthia was stunned and saw it as a shocking betrayal,” a crew member said at the time. “Sarah, Kristin and Cynthia have frozen Kim out. They won’t sit with her for meals. There’s no going out after the show for a nightcap. It’s so bad, she basically sits in her dressing room alone – sometimes crying.”
By 2004, when the final season of the show was shot, insiders reported that the clash of egos had made life on set supremely awkward. When shooting on location in Atlantic City, Sarah Jessica arranged a house for herself, Cynthia, 51, and Kristin, 52, to stay in, leaving Kim to hole up in a hotel. And Kim sat far away from her co-stars at the 2004 Emmy Awards. She said later, “Are we best friends? No.”
Despite their differences, Kim rejoined the cast in 2008 for the first SexandtheCity film, which became the highestgrossing romantic comedy of the year, and for a while, it seemed the feud was behind them.
Sarah Jessica gushed in 2009 how she “adored” Kim and wouldn’t have done the movie without her. The next year, Kim said, “People don’t want to believe that we get on. It makes for juicy gossip. I think Sarah is fantastic.”
But during shooting of the second SexandtheCity movie that same year, reports filtered through that on location in Morocco, Sarah Jessica again organised a hotel for herself, Cynthia and Kristin, but left Kim out.
Last year, the script for a third movie was finished and negotiations with the cast had begun, but in October, Kim confirmed she’d refused to take part. Talking to chatshow host Piers Morgan, she explained, “For me, it’s over. It’s over with no regrets. I just wish that Sarah had been nicer.”
Sarah Jessica later described Kim’s comments as “upsetting”, but last week, as the dust began to settle, she hinted the new Sex and the City film wasn’t shelved yet and that Basic Instinct star Sharon Stone, 59, was a possible replacement for Kim.
“It’s a really interesting idea,” Sarah Jessica smiled. “That’s the most clear answer I have given yet.”