Kristin Davis says she would do a Sex and the City Zoom reunion, after feud reports
One of the star’s of Sex and the City says she’s keen for a reunion - but she’ll have to overcome one of the nastiest TV feuds of all time.
There’s nothing quite like putting on a sheet mask, pouring a glass of wine and settling in for a Sex and the City marathon.
The iconic HBO show – which is available to stream on new Australian streaming service Binge – is one of the most celebrated series’ of all time, having cemented its place into pop culture history as it also helped pave the way for the future of feminism and female liberation.
But over the past few years it’s been hard not to watch it under a new lens, with revelations the show’s leading actresses didn’t get along all that well during filming and an almighty public stoush.
While Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall), Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon), and Charlotte York (Kristin Davis) were all the best of gal pals on the series – which ran from 1998 to 2004 – the cast have been subject to frenzied reports of “bullying” on set, and have even letting their feud play out in the media on several occasions.
This week Davis appeared on the US talk show The Talk, where she said she was interested in doing a SATC Zoom reunion, following on the coat tails of other popular nostalgic series’ like The Nanny and The Office.
Fans who have followed the damaging reports of a feud – namely between SJP and Cattrall – will know there’s probably zero chance of that ever happening.
So we decided to revisit all the monumental chapters from one of TV’s most heartbreaking, juicy, wild feuds of all time.
REPORTS SURFACE CATTRALL WAS A DIVA
Cattrall had been subject to “diva” rumours for many years, many of which she never responded to. But it seems the gossip became too much after a comment made by her former co-star in 2017.
SJP had squashed the dreams of SATC fans the world over when she said there would be no third film, after the first two proved box office successes (though we’d probably rather forget the sequel).
But she hinted there was only one person who wouldn’t come to the party.
“I’m disappointed. We had this beautiful, funny, heartbreaking, joyful, very relatable script.”
That same day an anonymously sourced article ran in the Daily Mail, which blamed Cattrall and her “demands” for killing the movie.
Cattrall tweeted the next day: “Woke 2 a @MailOnline [poo emoji] storm! The only DEMAND I ever made was that I didn’t want to do a 3rd film….& that was back in 2016.”
But the floodgates had opened, and articles were pumped out about the death of the movie, quoting other Sex stars and producers who confirmed that the movie was over and what an awful thing that was for fans.
Within 24 hours, Cattrall was the villain.
She booked an interview with British talk show host Piers Morgan days later, took her gloves off, and let it rip.
“The answer was always no,” said Cattrall. “I never asked for any money, I never asked for any projects. To be thought of as some kind of diva is ridiculous.”
She told Morgan that she had no idea when she last spoke to her co-stars, and that no one had approached her when the reports began circulating about her holding up the film.
“Nobody ever picks up the phone and tries to contact you and say, ‘How you doing?’ That would have been the way to handle it,” she added.
“This is, it feels like, a toxic relationship.”
EPIC FEUD REIGNITES OVER BROTHER’S DEATH
In February 2018, a few months after Cattrall’s interview with Morgan, she announced the “unexpected” death of her brother, Chris.
SJP appeared to want to bury the hatchet at the time, commenting on Cattrall’s Instagram post saying: “Dearest Kim, my love and condolences to you and yours and Godspeed to your beloved brother. Xx.”
Boy did that backfire.
Cattrall initially thanked her co-stars for their support in a tweet.
“I would like to thank my fans, friends, and my #SexandtheCity colleagues for the outpouring of support for myself and family over the past 72 hours,” she wrote.
Cattrall also thanked Nixon personally for calling her, saying: “Cynthia, hearing your voice meant so much to me. Thank you for reaching out. Love Kim #SexandtheCity.”
But then she pulled a smoking gun at SJP, posting this absolute savage take-down:
She also included a link to a New York Post article which seems to explain the friction between Cattrall and Parker from their time spent on Sex and the City.
Shortly after, SJP dismissed rumours of a bitter feud, refusing to respond to Cattrall’s “hurtful” comments about her, The Sun wrote.
Months later in September, Davis appeared to snub Cattrall by posting a throwback photo from the Emmys in 2004 of herself, SJP and Nixon with two Emmy Awards trophies in front of them. (It later emerged Cattrall was seated far away from her co-stars.)
WHERE DID IT ALL START?
According to a 2008 book proposal shopped by Clifford Streit, the real-life inspiration for the show’s character Stanford Blatch, tensions on set began because Cattrall was “a natural comedienne, and a scene-stealer in the best possible sense — the camera went right to her”.
This was, it seems, a problem, given that Parker was playing the show’s heroine, Carrie. A clique began to form, leaving Cattrall out in the cold.
Parker and Nixon (Miranda), who’d known each other since their days as pre-teen Broadway actors, gravitated towards each other and pretty quickly included co-star Davis (Charlotte) in their group.
For the first couple of years, Cattrall had a real ally on set in the form of series creator and producer Darren Star. But when he left after the second season and was replaced by Parker’s friend Michael Patrick King, Cattrall was completely isolated.
Page Six reported how, during an Atlantic City, NJ, location shoot, “Sarah Jessica rented a house for herself, Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon. Kim was left out on her own.”
(An HBO spokesman said, “Kim stayed in a different house because she was married at the time, and her husband was supposed to come.”)
Running up to the end of the series, there were stories filtering into Page Six almost weekly about the onset tensions. By the end, no one would talk to Kim. “Not even in the make-up room,” one insider said.
Cattrall reluctantly signed on for the first movie in 2007, but as a friend of hers told the Daily News, “Kim does not want to … do the film. She feels she has been treated horribly by Sarah Jessica Parker for six years.”
Despite the tension, the movie was a hit — making a whopping $US415 million worldwide. Producers, including Parker, were eager to replicate the financial boon and wanted to make a second movie as soon as possible, but Cattrall held back. Soon, gossip started circulating about her “diva demands”. She eventually signed on, after demanding, and receiving, more money.
The actor’s friend recalled: “There was a disparity between what Sarah got and what the other girls got. Everyone loved Kim’s character, people related to her — and [Kim’s] salary wasn’t showing that.”
Even with more money, by the time filming started, things were awkward.
According to a 2009 article in New York magazine: “Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Cattrall are no longer speaking, which is making everyone on the set of the new Sex And The City movie uncomfortable.”
While Parker’s publicist always denied there were any issues between the women, Parker admitted to clashes on set to Marie Claire in 2010, saying: “Sometimes feelings get hurt.”
Sex and the City is available to stream on Binge