It’s hard not to get “carried away” with our love for Sarah Jessica Parker.
After all, she played Carrie Bradshaw, one of the most iconic characters on television. She even lives right down the street from the Sex and the City (SATC) character’s apartment!
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But there is actually a lot more to Sarah than just Carrie. Come learn why with these 10+ facts fans didn’t know.
1. She comes from a big family:
She was one of eight children ! Sadly, her father, Stephen, left the family when she was only one.
This left her mother, Barbara, having to care for all those kids on her own until she met Sarah’s stepdad, Paul Forst.
2. She had her first big break at 13:
After Sarah and her family moved to New York, she landed a part on two Broadway shows, The Innocents and Annie .
Her talent was apparent from a young age as she was bumped up to the lead role of Annie the next year.
3. She initially turned down *Sex and the City*:
This hurts to even think about. But after gaining sucess on Square Pegs , the actress was afraid of being pigeonholed to TV.
She was also wary about the subject matter of the show, i.e. all the nudity and crass language.
But her agent, Kevin Huvane, was relentless in getting her to take the part that the *SATC* creator had written for her.
Thankfully, she got “carried away” in the end, agreeing to take on the part on one condition: that her contract specified no nude scenes.
4. She almost wasn’t Carrie for another reason:
Carrie almost was — gasp! — a brunette. That’s because actress Lisa Edelstein was signed up to play the part.
“It wasn’t a rumor, that actually happened,” Edelstein told Access Hollywood .
The part was only officially hers if Parker turned it down.
“My contract was complete. I was waiting,” Edelstein said.
As we all know, Sarah ended up taking the role. Edelstein later took on a Carrie-like role in The Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce . (Good show, BTW!)
5. She and Kim Cattrall never got along on *Sex and the City*:
This was the kind of feud that not even a cosmo could fix.
“We’ve never been friends,” Cattrall said during an appearance on ITV‘s Piers Morgan’s Life Stories .
“We’ve been colleagues and in some way, it’s a very healthy place to be.”
Their rumored drama goes way back to the original series when Cattrall negotiated for a higher salary.
Any beef between them started up again after reports stated that Cattrall put the ax on the third Sex and the City movie for demanding too much.
6. She met her husband, Matthew Broderick, on Broadway:
This was back in 1991 when he was directing a play at the theater that was founded by Sarah’s brothers, Pippin and Toby.
“I do remember first meeting her,” Broderick told the YES Network . “I still remember very clearly seeing her walk down the street toward the movie theater…” Aww!
After dating for several years, they got married in 1997.
Their surprise wedding took place at Angel Orensanz Synagogue on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
They’ve been together for almost 23 years now and have three kids: a son, James; and twin girls, Marion and Tabitha.
7. About that wedding, she *totally* regrets wearing a black wedding dress!
While chatting with Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens: Live back in 2016, SJP admitted it’s the one thing she’d change about her big day!
“I just was too embarrassed to spend any time looking for a wedding dress,” she told Andy.
“There was a store that I liked that I knew, and I just went and got whatever they had hanging.”
That’s so…Carrie Bradshaw marrying Big in the first Sex and the City movie!
If she could do it all over again, she said she would absolutely wear white!
“I’d wear a beautiful, proper wedding dress, like I should have worn that day.
SJP elaborated to Martha Stewart Weddings in 2015, saying she’d want an “Oscar de la Renta feel, pockets below the waist, a very fitted bodice, a huge skirt, in taffeta and duchesse satin.”
8. She dated Robert Downey Jr. for seven years:
SJP and RDJ were truly the “it” couple of the ’80s.
The pair met when they were both 18 years old and moved in together after only eight weeks of dating.
Speaking with *Parade* back in 2008, Robert blames their split on his drug addiction.
“I was so selfish,” Robert admitted .
“I liked to drink, and I had a drug problem, and that didn’t jibe with Sarah Jessica, because it is the furthest thing from what she is.”
He continued: “She provided me a home and understanding. She tried to help me. She was so miffed when I didn’t get my act together.”
“I was in love with Sarah Jessica . . . and love clearly was not enough.”
9. She studied ballet at the American Ballet School:
While she gave up the dream of being a ballerina for acting, she did tell NPR that dancing has helped her career.
“[It] allowed me to be physical in my work — and that’s not something everybody wants to do, or can do, or thinks of integrating,” she said.
“But I think even for L.A. Story, I think being a dancer was helpful in sorting out that role,” she continued.
It helped her with Carrie Bradshaw, too.
“Running all the time, or moving around, finding ways to be physical in lots of things, [it] has been maybe something that I call upon.”
10. Her love of high heels has damaged her feet:
This comes from many years of walking around in her beloved Manolo Blahniks.
Parker even created a shoe line with the shoe designer herself! But beauty can come at a hefty cost.
In 2013, the actress went to a foot doctor who was astonished by what he saw.
“I went to a foot doctor and he said, ‘Your foot does things it shouldn’t be able to do. That bone there…You’ve created that bone. It doesn’t belong there,'” she told ET .
11. She actually did not drink her first cosmopolitan until after *SATC* was over:
Say whaaat?
Parker revealed this shocking tidbit during an interview with Interview magazine. “I never had a real Cosmopolitan, like really, really truly.”
“Like, I didn’t order one, but people would hand them to me, and I’d hold them in my hand not to be rude.”
In case you’re wondering what she drank as a cosmo on SATC , she said that it was “probably cranberry juice and water and slices of lime or lemon and a chilled glass.”
12. She makes her kids wear hand-me-downs:
Unlike her Sex and the City character, Sarah doesn’t spend all her money on expensive shoes.
“He only wears hand-me-downs because I’ve got all these older nephews,” she told Parade about her son’s clothes.
13. She fired back at *Maxim* for calling her the “Unsexiest Woman Alive”:
Ugh, the nerve.
“Am I really the unsexiest woman in the world?” she said during an interview with Grazia magazine.
“Wow! It’s kind of shocking. It’s so brutal in a way, so filled with rage and anger.”
“Do I have big fake boobs, Botox and big lips? No,” she continued.
“Do I fit some ideals and standards of some men writing in a men’s magazine? Maybe not.”
She went on to say the news upset her hubby, too.
I mean, can we blame him?! Imagine a publication said that about YOUR wife?! Awful!
“It upset him, because it has to do with his judgement too. It’s condemnation, it’s insane. What can I do? I guess you can’t please all people.”
14. SJP learned she had a relative that was accused of witchcraft on the TLC show *Who Do You Think You Are?*
Sarah learned that her 10th great-grandmother, Esther Elwell, was accused of practicing witchcraft while living in Salem, Massachusetts during the Salem Witch Trial craze in the 1690s.
The actress was relieved to find out that Esther’s life was spared because she was accused of witchcraft in November 1692, about two weeks after the court had been dissolved.
