Carrie Bradshaw is one of the greatest characters in TV history. She was capable of insane levels of rudeness and selfishness, but she was real, and complicated and human. But one thing she wasn’t was alone. In six series of Sex and the City, she dated 28 men. Some lasted years. Others barely made it beyond the appetizers. But they all made an impression on her love story. Now, it appears that one of them is returning.
According to reports, John Corbett has signed on to appear in the Sex And The City reboot, meaning Aidan is about to re-enter Carrie's life. There have also been suggestions that Chris Noth, who plays Big, will not be back. So, to honour New York’s ultimate singleton-turned-millionaire’s wife, here is our personal ranking of every man in her Rolodex.
28. Ray King
He and Carrie had a really special instant chemistry, meeting in a jazz club when Carrie made the mistake of going out with Big platonically. They could have had something special. But I can’t forgive the porkpie hat.
27. Howie Halberstein
His first crime was being really, violently bad in bed. But that can be forgiven if one expresses a desire to learn and improve. Nope: he took rejection so badly that he took it out on the whole room at his best friend’s wedding. What an arse.
26. The Man Who Steals Cheap Used Books for No Reason
OK, committing a felony is definitely a red flag. This guy popped up in Season 2’s The Freak Show episode, nicking a book in full view of Carrie’s disgusted gaze.
25. The Man With Two Faces
Sometimes you just know how a fictional character would vote. Another of the men who showed up in The Freak Show, he was really nice to Carrie but aggressive as hell to strangers. He was a spiritual cousin to the character played by Ben Stiller in Friends. Maybe they should have had a wrestle.
24. Keith Travers
Keith is charismatic and interesting, showing Carrie around LA and wooing her with talk of being Matt Damon’s agent. But he’s lying. He’s just some loser house-sitting Carrie Fisher’s apartment.
Obviously using dishonesty to woo a woman is unacceptable, but he moves one or two places up the ladder because he provides Carrie with a lol story she could dine out on for years.
23. Jack Berger
I don’t care that he was handsome and had so, so much in common with Carrie. He dumped her via a Post-It. That’s all I have to know.
22. Wade Adams
He’s the one who blamed Carrie when his parents caught them smoking weed in his room. Carrie really had a thing for man-children at one point, didn’t she?
21. Kurt Harrington
Kurt was Carrie’s target when she decided to try and act ‘like a man’ in the way that she pursued romance in the first series, thus becoming the first man to ever sleep with Carrie in the programme. He was, unsurprisingly, a complete douche.
20. PJ, The Man With No Soul
On the surface, an arty, interesting filmmaker interested in seagulls. Deep down: a corporate shell. Accordingly, he’s one of Carrie’s most unremarkable dates and if Carrie hates anything it’s a bore.
30 Things You Didn't Know About Sex And The City - Grazia
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The tutu that Carrie wears in the opening credits cost $5 from a showroom bargain bin. It's now framed and hangs in Michael Patrick King's office.
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Even if she was filmed from the waist up, Kim Cattrall – who played Samantha – insisted she wore heels as she said it made her feel more like her character.
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MISTAKE ALERT! In the opening credits, the bus that goes past Carrie with her picture on it is full of people in the first shot, then totally empty once it splashes her.
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Sarah Jessica Parker was the only one of the four ladies to have a nudity clause in her contract stating she would never appear naked.
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Mr Big's second wife, Natasha, always wore white because her character was meant to be 'vanilla'.
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Remember that politician Carrie dates in Season 3? He only went on to play ROGER STERLING in Mad Men.
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Cynthia Nixon, who played Miranda, didn't have pierced ears. All her earrings were clip-ons.
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When Trey (Kyle MacLachlan) proposed to Charlotte (Kristen Davis) outside Tiffanys, it wasn't the real Tiffanys. The store wouldn't let them film for security reasons, so the set designers had to design a fake Tiffanys window. A Tiffanys employer still okayed it though.
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No outfit was ever repeated twice – except Carrie's fur coat in the final scene of the last series where she's on the phone to 'John'.
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When Miranda's cat steals Brady's umbilical cord (hard to forget that bit) the 'umbilical cord' was actually some beef jerky tied to a piece of string.
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The scene where Carrie and Miranda ate a cupcake outside Magnolia bakery was credited for the global boom in cupcakes sales which followed. Yes, GLOBAL. The shop also later had to hire bouncers to control the crowds.
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Why was Mr Big called Mr Big? Sex and the City author Candice Bushnell told New York Magazine in 2004, 'He was one of those New York guys with a big personality — you just notice him as soon as he walks in the room.' She also said, 'I called him Mr. Big because he was like a big man on campus.'
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Carrie's iconic nameplate necklace came from costume designer, Patricia Field's, East Village shop – often frequented by students. 'That name necklace was something that black kids, Puerto Rican kids, borough kids, ethnic kids had been wearing forever, that was just a statement,' she said. She had one made up especially for Carrie.
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Jennifer Aniston's ex-husband, Justin Theroux, appeared twice in SATC. First as Jared, Stanford's pal in Season One's The Monogamists, who Carrie flirts with at New York Magazine's '30 coolest people under 30' party. Second, as writer Vaughn Wysel in Shortcomings, who has a very close and open family, the mother of which Carrie felt was the person she ultimately had to break up with when the relationship with Vaughn collapsed.
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Who was Mr Big supposedly based on? Publishing executive Ron Galotti, former publisher of GQ and Talk. Wanna see a pic of him? Ok...
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Mr Big was originally described by Carrie as 'the next Donald Trump'... What a relief she was wrong.
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The first dog to play Aidan's pooch, Pete, was afraid of actor John Corbett. It loved SJP though. In the end, they had to find another dog for the role.
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When Carrie falls into the Central Park pond to avoid a kiss from Big, Sarah Jessica Parker cut her foot on the bottom and had to have a tetanus shot straight after, even though the pool was dredged prior to filming. Luckily the scene was filmed in one take – but still... WHAT a palaver!
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Sarah Jessica Parker was once set-up on a date with Willie Garson.
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Season 5 was created to be shorter than the other series' because Sarah Jessica Parker was pregnant.
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Carrie never calls Mr Big 'Big' to his face – only behind his back. In fact, she doesn't call him anything at all in the ENTIRE series. It's only in Sex and the City: The Movie that she refers to him by his real name, 'John'... and that's just the once when she gets home and asks where he is.
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The four girls' family are rarely mentioned because the show's creators didn't want family issues to detract from the friendships and characters.
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When Carrie goes to LA to talk about a film version of her book and ends up having that #awkward chat with Matthew McConaughey about his take on the 'Mr Big character', Matthew wasn't the first actor approached for the cameo. Originally it was Alec Baldwin, who turned it down. As did George Clooney and Warren Beatty.
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Candice Bushnell only made $60,000 from selling the rights to her bestselling book Sex and the City.
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The most expensive dress Carrie wore was the Atelier Versace Couture 'Mille Feuille' gown in the penultimate SATC episode, when she was in Paris awaiting her date with Aleksandr Petrovsky. It cost $80,000.
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Carrie's apartment – 245 E 73rd Street, between Park and Madison – doesn't exist. It's actual location was 66 Perry Street, between Bleeker and 4th East 73rd street.
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Kim Cattrall only decided to play Samantha after a friend convinced her. She turned down the role twice.
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Carrie Bradshaw's apartment was sold in 2012 for $9.65million. In the series she said she paid just $750 per month in rent for it.
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The book Love Letters Of Great Men from SATC
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When Carrie bumps into Aidan carrying his baby in Season 6, the child was actually Sarah Jessica Parker's. That's why the baby looks so pleased to see her – CUTE!
19. John McFadden
Carrie’s f*** buddy, John made it clear that he really wasn’t worthy of attention beyond his prowess in the bedroom. Smug and annoying, she should have known that he had no longterm potential. Are we judging him too harshly because the actor who plays him – Dean Winters – played the eternal loser Dennis in 30 Rock? Maybe…
18. Sean
A businessman, Carrie tries him out in Season 1’s Bay of Married Pigs. She is turned off by his eagerness to commit. He’s fine. Perfectly fine. But I’d rather an interesting man with problems then a boring man with none.
17. Jake
Jake, played by the then-unknown Bradley Cooper, teased Carrie about the New York Magazine cover that truly upset her. We hate insensitive men.
16. Dr Bradley Meego
Nice guy. A doctor. Utterly, utterly boring. I have nothing else to say.
15. Jeremiah
Jeremiah didn’t do anything wrong on paper but it is very, very unprofessional to whip out a tattoo that stretches to ones pelvis at a party, especially when one is working as a waiter at said party. How uncouth!
14. Willie Applegate
Carrie totally used this guy. She was feeling nervous about going on a date with Berger so she thought a no-pressure date with an unknowing victim would help. Such a rude way to waste someone’s time. But anyway, Willie was a well-meaning bag of nerves, his obsession with his stye and his clumsiness with balsamic making a chaotic date. The pigeon wasn’t his fault, though.
13. Seth
Seth looked like Jon Bon Jovi. Because he was played by Jon Bon Jovi. Hubba hubba. But he used women for sex and clearly had no intention of seeing Carrie again. Rude.
12. Sam, The Twenty Something
Honestly I don’t care that his apartment was bare and messy and didn’t have any bog roll. He was played by Timothy Oliphant so Cattie should have married him immediately. But she didn’t, because he was too youthful.
11. Patrick Casey
I don’t think he is treated fairly by SATC fans. Yes, the four-date relationship goes south because he gets too intense, but he has addiction issues that Carrie ignored when pursuing him. Aside from this, he’s kind and sweet and really, really hot. If Carrie had been more patient and less horny he could, eventually, have proven himself to be a good man.
10. Aleksandr Petrovsky
Aleksandr was obviously arrogant and rude and alienated Carrie from her friends and flew her to another country then ignored her, but to be honest she also transferred all of her hang-ups and desires onto him and acted a bit spoiled about the whole fiasco. The relationship was doomed. But, he was elegant, stylish and brought a really interesting side out of Carrie.
9. Jeremy
Again, Carrie pursued something with someone who was not truly ready or available. Her high school sweetheart – David Duchovny, what a man – seemed the perfect object of her affection, but they decided it couldn’t go on due to his living situation: in a mental institution. I don’t judge Carrie for not giving it a proper go – that is a lot for someone to take on – but I wish she’d put up a bit more of a fight.
8. Aidan Shaw
A cuddly, loveable dweeb, Aidan would have been the perfect boyfriend for anyone but Carrie Bradshaw. They just didn’t align. The Sex and the City 2 cameo never happened, because I say it didn’t.
7. Gilles
Gilles was a sexy and charming international jetsetter. What a catch! We would be crying out for her to call him back, but he left a huge wad of cash when he departed in the morning, thus showing that he believed Carrie was an escort. He probably wasn’t looking for something serious, then.
6. Vaughn Wysel
He’d be higher up the list if not for one reason, and it’s not his tendency to ejaculate within seconds: it’s that Carrie liked his family way more than she liked him. Was never going to work. Even if he was played by Justin Theroux.
5. Ben
Carrie proved that it’s not only men who are freaks in dating. Ben was adorable, sweet, completely lovely. She couldn’t believe it. She rifled through his things and made herself look bonkers.
Carrie, he could have been the one!
4. Sean
Honestly what a dreamboat! Sean was played by Eddie Cahill – who played Rachel’s hot assistant in Friends – and was sensitive and sweet and fun. Carrie couldn’t handle his bisexuality, showing herself up as a pretty close-minded sex columnist. Your loss, Carrie. Your loss.
3. Joe Starr
Carrie screwed it up with this hot, rich, famous player for the New York Yankees because she wasn’t over Big, but that wasn’t Joe’s fault. He was a complete catch. Get it? Baseball? Catch? Oh please, Carrie would have liked it.
2. Bill Kelley
Oh Carrie. For a sex columnist you were a remarkable prude. One hint of a kink and you were off. Bill Kelley, played by Mad Men’s John Slattery, was suave and interesting and accomplished. Carrie ran for the hills at the mere whisper of a golden shower.
1. Big
Inevitable I know, but there can be no doubt. Big was self-absorbed, unpredictable, egotistical. They were made for each other. Plus, he was loaded. If you thought Carrie was going to end up with anyone other than a millionaire then you greatly overestimate her.
So there you have it. Big was definitely the right person for Carrie. But you can't say she didn't explore other options, can you?
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