‘Sex and the City’ Author Candace Bushnell Explains Why Rejection Can Be Good
Candace Bushnell is a popular author, with her books inspiring hit TV shows like Sex and the City, Lipstick Jungle, and The Carrie Diaries. Bushnell is extremely successful, but the writer knows all about rejection — she even thinks it’s a necessary part of her success!
How a newspaper column based on Candace Bushnell’s life inspired ‘Sex and the City’
Bushnell started her career as a freelance journalist, but it wasn’t until a 1993 writing job for The New York Observer that she found success. Bushnell started writing a column called “Sex and the City,” where she wrote about dating, drawing on her own personal stories as well as those of her friends.
In 1997, some of the columns were compiled for a “Sex and the City” anthology. This led to the the HBO series Sex and the City. The show was loosely based on Bushnell’s writing, with main character Carrie Bradshaw — a social, fashion-loving columnist — a fictionalized version of Bushnell.
Sex and the City was one of HBO’s biggest hits, earning seven Emmys and eight Golden Globes. The show’s popularity spawned two movies, premiering in 2008 and 2010, a prequel series based on Bushnell’s “Carrie Diaries” books, and a 2021 sequel series And Just Like That…
Candace Bushnell says dealing with ‘rejection and negativity’ are part of being successful
Looking at Bushnell’s success as a writer and creator, many would assume she knows nothing about rejection. However, while appearing on an episode of Meghan Markle’s Archetypes podcast, the author talked about the role rejection has played in her life and career.
“Sometimes I think that being successful is being able to deal with rejection and negativity and people saying ‘You can’t do this,’ and still finding that strength to continue on,” Bushnell explained.
Before striking it big with hit books and TV shows, Bushnell struggled to make ends meet. In an interview with The Sunday Times, she talked about the challenges she faced in her writing career, from a never-published children’s book to making just $8,000 one year.
Candace Bushnell says ‘And Just Like That…’ is ‘not my story’
Bushnell’s writing might have inspired Sex and the City and And Just Like That… but that doesn’t mean she gets a say on what happens to the characters. In an interview with The Globe and Mail, the author talked about her feelings on what happened in some of the sequels — particularly when it came to Carrie’s relationship with Mr. Big.
“With [Sex and the City], yes [it stayed true to her life],” Bushnell explained. “But with the movies, once Carrie marries Mr. Big, then I feel like it sort of went off in its own direction.”
Bushnell has also talked about And Just Like That… and some of the choices that were made for the characters.
“I’m really startled by a lot of the decisions made in the reboot,” she told Variety, saying she could no longer relate to the characters, especially Carrie: “I mean, Carrie Bradshaw ended up being a quirky woman who married a really rich guy. And that’s not my story, or any of my friends’ stories. But TV has its own logic.”
