Diva Kim isn’t describing the SJP whom I got to know
What are we to make of the bitter feud between Kim Cattrall and her old Sex and the City co-star, Sarah Jessica Parker? After Cattrall posted news of her brother’s death, SJP offered her condolences. As people do. Cattrall, who played sex-siren Samantha in the long-running TV show about female friendship, immediately lashed out: “I don’t need your love or support at this tragic time... My Mom asked me today ‘When will that @sarahjessicaparker, that hypocrite, leave you alone? Your continuous reaching out is a painful reminder of how cruel you really were then and now… Let me make this very clear. You are not my family. You are not my friend. So… stop exploiting our tragedy in order to restore your ‘nice girl’ persona.”
Ooof! Clearly, no love lost there. Reporters have tended to take Cattrall’s word about SJP’S unpleasant treatment of her on set. I have my own suspicions about which is the guilty party.
I don’t generally hang out with movie stars, but I did get to know Sarah Jessica quite well when she was playing my heroine, Kate Reddy, in the film of I Don’t Know How She Does It. She is extremely unusual for a celebrity. Reliably kind and thoughtful, in any given situation she bends over backwards to try to make it about other people, not herself. I have watched her do that on many occasions. The most recent was in Memphis, a fortnight ago, at a booksellers’ conference where she talked with passion and humility about her lifelong love of reading.
I once invited SJP to a party thrown for me in a cramped New York flat. She not only turned up, ascending several flights of stairs in vertiginous Manolos, but chatted happily with my children and girlfriends. The latter were amazed when she joined in a “Reply All” group conversation. “I seem to have just been emailed by Sarah Jessica Parker!!” one reported joyfully.
One of eight children, Parker grew up in genteel poverty and never takes her privilege for granted. Whenever I spent any time with her, it struck me me that her fame is a burden she feels she must carry with gratitude and good grace, rather than a light to dazzle and intimidate.
Of course, SJP is an actress who could be putting on a “nice girl persona”. But the fact she makes such an effort to be friendly and well-mannered marks her out from many other haughty, rude celebritites. Like, er, Kim Cattrall, who has been known to be quite the diva.
I know which woman I would rather call friend.