Sex and the City: How Old Carrie Was At The Beginning & End

Sex and the City follows journalist Carrie Bradshaw’s relationship antics in New York City, but after a six-season-long show and two subsequent movies, how old was Carrie at the beginning and end? The series is based on Candace Bushnell’s semi-autobiographical book Sex and the City, detailing the relationships and lifestyles of her and her friends, who would later go on to fictionally become Carrie Bradshaw, Samantha Jones, Charlotte York, and Miranda Hobbes. Picked up by HBO in 1998, Sex and the City enjoyed six seasons as a top series until its final episode in 2004. The franchise later spawned two movies, plus a Sex and the City revival series is set to premiere on HBO Max at the end of 2021.

As the narrator of the series through her columns, Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) is the lead character in Sex and the City who provides a basis for the connections between her three closest friends. Carrie has become an iconic fashionista, party girl, and independent career woman in the big city, even being listed as number 11 on Bravo’s “100 Greatest TV Characters.” Over the course of the series, Carrie becomes an icon within the city, is confronted about a film based on her columns, becomes a freelance writer for Vogue, and compiles her columns into a book.

The timeline of Sex and the City can get quite confusing when taking into account the original series itself, the following movies, and the prequel series, The Carrie Diaries, on Carrie’s teenage years. The timeline of the show typically follows the same passage of time in real life, so realistically Carrie should age one year in each season. She states she’s 32 years old at the beginning of season 1, which takes place in 1998, so her birth year is put at about 1966. She then turns 35 in season 4, meaning that once Sex and the City’s original TV series comes to an end, Carrie is 38 years old, as confirmed by the title of episode “Catch-38”. Once the movies come into the picture, the timeline and the corresponding characters’ ages become a little fuzzier.

The first Sex and the City movie premiered in 2008, seemingly four years after the events of the series. A magazine editor asks Carrie to pose as the “40-year-old bride,” though if the film actually takes place in the year it premiered, she would really be about 41-42. This confusion can be cleared up a bit considering the film is supposed to take place over 2 years, so one can assume it begins in 2007, or at least before Carrie’s 41st birthday, and finishes in 2008 when she’s 41-42. The sequel, Sex and the City 2, premiered two years later in 2010. The sequel seems to still pick up two years after the first movie, likely putting Carrie at 43-44 years old by the end of the established Sex and the City franchise.

In the real-world timeline, Carrie Bradshaw would be about 54-55 years old in 2021. If the new revival series, And Just Like That…, picks up 11 years after Sex and the City 2 in the franchise timeline, Carrie will likely be exploring the city in her mid-50s. Either way, audiences are excited to see the iconic Carrie Bradshaw drinking cosmos, keeping up with the modern fashion of the city, and describing love and friendships in the 2020s. Though Samantha won’t be returning, it’ll be interesting to see how married life has been treating Carrie and the Sex and the City girls over the past decade.

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Jordan Williams
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Jordan Williams is a Movie/TV Feature Senior Staff Writer for Screen Rant. She graduated from the University of Oregon in 2020 with a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Media Studies.

Jordan is based in Seattle, Washington and enjoys exploring the natural beauty the PNW has to offer. She runs on coffee and classic movies, taking pride in having watched every film on AFI’s 100 Greatest Films list and every Best Picture Oscar winner.

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