Sarah Jessica Parker is one of the most recognizable actresses and producers in American television, best known for playing Carrie Bradshaw on Sex and the City and its sequel series And Just Like That. For nearly three decades, her name has been shorthand for a very specific fantasy of New York City: tutus on sidewalks, impossible shoes, and a writer forever asking questions about love.
But Parker’s story is far bigger than one character. She was a child actor on Broadway, a sitcom lead in the 1980s, a movie star in the 1990s, and eventually one of television’s most powerful producers. In 2025, she closed the book on Carrie Bradshaw after 27 years, judged the Booker Prize, and entered 2026 collecting lifetime-achievement honors. Here is a full look at her life, career, controversies, family, and latest news.
Who Is Sarah Jessica Parker? Early Life and Rise to Fame
Sarah Jessica Parker was born on March 25, 1965, in Nelsonville, Ohio, one of eight children in a blended family that often struggled financially. Her mother, Barbara, was a teacher, and her stepfather, Paul Forste, worked as a truck driver and account executive. Parker has spoken openly about periods of real hardship growing up, including times on welfare, an experience she credits with shaping her work ethic.
Her talent surfaced early. She trained in singing and ballet, and the family eventually moved to the New York area to support the children’s performing careers. In 1976, at age 11, she made her Broadway debut in The Innocents. Her big break came in 1979, when she took over the title role in the Broadway musical Annie, becoming the third actress to play the famous redheaded orphan.
From Broadway Annie to Square Pegs
Parker’s transition from stage to screen came quickly. In 1982, she landed the lead role of Patty Greene, an awkward, bespectacled teenager, in the CBS sitcom Square Pegs. The show lasted only one season but earned a cult following and put her on Hollywood’s radar.
Film roles followed: the dance-averse best friend in Footloose (1984), the lead in Girls Just Want to Have Fun (1985), and memorable turns in L.A. Story (1991), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), and Tim Burton’s Ed Wood (1994). In 1993 she played Sarah Sanderson, the ditzy witch in Disney’s Hocus Pocus, a modest box-office performer that became a beloved Halloween classic. She reprised the role in Hocus Pocus 2 (2022) for Disney+.
Sarah Jessica Parker’s Career Highlights: Carrie Bradshaw and Beyond
Everything changed in 1998, when Parker agreed, reportedly with some initial reluctance, to star in a new HBO comedy based on Candace Bushnell’s newspaper column. Sex and the City ran for six seasons from 1998 to 2004, and Carrie Bradshaw, the sex-and-relationships columnist with a shoe habit, became one of the defining television characters of her generation.
The show was a cultural phenomenon. It changed how television portrayed single women in their thirties, turned Manolo Blahnik into a household name, and made Parker a global fashion icon. Crucially, she was not just the star: from season three onward she served as a producer, and the show’s success established her as a serious behind-the-camera force. Two feature films followed, Sex and the City: The Movie (2008) and Sex and the City 2 (2010), with the first grossing more than $400 million worldwide.
Divorce, And Just Like That, and Producing
Parker returned to HBO in 2016 with Divorce, a darker comedy about a marriage falling apart, which she led and executive produced for three seasons through 2019. Through her production company, Pretty Matches Productions, founded in 2005, she developed projects across television and documentary film.
In 2021, she revived Carrie Bradshaw for And Just Like That, the Sex and the City sequel series on HBO Max, reuniting with Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis. The show ran for three seasons and, despite polarizing reviews, was consistently one of the platform’s most-watched and most-discussed titles. In August 2025, Parker and showrunner Michael Patrick King announced the series would end with its third season, a creative decision rather than a cancellation. The finale aired on August 14, 2025, closing Carrie’s story with her alone but at peace, rewriting the last line of her novel to read that the woman “was not alone, she was on her own.”
Fashion, Fragrance, and Publishing: The SJP Brand
Parker has built a genuine business portfolio beyond acting. Her fragrance Lovely, launched in 2005, became a long-running bestseller. In 2014 she launched the SJP Collection, a footwear line co-founded with former Manolo Blahnik CEO George Malkemus, which grew to include boutiques and international distribution.
She is also a significant figure in publishing. She served as editorial director of SJP for Hogarth, a literary imprint, and later founded SJP Lit with independent publisher Zando, championing literary fiction. That passion led to a headline-making appointment: in December 2024, Parker was named a judge for the 2025 Booker Prize, on a panel chaired by Booker winner Roddy Doyle. The panel awarded the prize to David Szalay’s Flesh in November 2025, a decision Parker described as “a real agony” because of the strength of the shortlist.
What Awards Has Sarah Jessica Parker Won?
Sarah Jessica Parker has won two Emmy Awards, four Golden Globes for acting, and three Screen Actors Guild Awards, almost all connected to Sex and the City. Her major honors include:
- Emmy Awards: Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series in 2004 for Sex and the City, plus an Outstanding Comedy Series Emmy in 2001 as one of the show’s producers.
- Golden Globes: Four wins for Best Actress in a Television Comedy for Sex and the City, among the most ever for a single comedic TV role.
- SAG Awards: Three wins, including individual honors and an ensemble award shared with the cast.
- Hollywood Walk of Fame: She received her star in 2006, and Broadway later honored her long stage career, which includes runs in Once Upon a Mattress and Plaza Suite opposite her husband, Matthew Broderick.
- Carol Burnett Award: In January 2026, the Golden Globes presented Parker with the Carol Burnett Award, its highest honor for lifetime achievement in television, placing her alongside past recipients like Oprah Winfrey and Norman Lear.
Sarah Jessica Parker Controversies: The Feud, the Fallout, and the Cruelty
No account of Parker’s career is complete without the controversies that have followed it, though she has generally handled them with restraint.
What Happened Between Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Cattrall?
The most persistent story is her reported feud with Kim Cattrall, who played Samantha Jones. Tension reportedly dated back to the original series, fueled partly by pay disparities between Parker, the show’s highest-paid star and producer, and the rest of the cast. It burst into public view in 2018, when Parker offered condolences after the death of Cattrall’s brother and Cattrall responded on Instagram, telling her “you are not my family” and calling her behavior “cruel.” Cattrall declined to return for a third film or for And Just Like That, though she filmed a brief solo cameo as Samantha for the season two finale in 2023, shot separately from the rest of the cast. Parker, for her part, has repeatedly denied that a feud exists, saying there was never a fight between them and expressing only public respect for Cattrall’s choice to move on.
The Chris Noth Allegations
In December 2021, just as And Just Like That premiered, multiple women accused Chris Noth, who played Mr. Big, of sexual assault, allegations he denied. Parker, Cynthia Nixon, and Kristin Davis issued a joint statement saying they were “deeply saddened” and supported the women coming forward. A planned Noth cameo was cut from the season one finale, and the character never returned to the series.
The “Unsexiest Woman Alive” Insult
Parker has also been on the receiving end of genuine public cruelty. In 2007, Maxim magazine named her the “unsexiest woman alive,” a gratuitous insult she later admitted wounded her deeply, saying it “was so brutal” and hurt her family. The episode is now frequently cited as an example of the casual misogyny female stars endured in 2000s media culture, and public sympathy has long since swung firmly to her side.
Who Is Sarah Jessica Parker’s Husband? Relationships and Family Life
Sarah Jessica Parker has been married to actor Matthew Broderick since May 19, 1997. The two met through her brothers, both active in New York theater, and wed in a famously secretive civil ceremony in Manhattan. Nearly three decades on, they remain one of Hollywood’s most enduring couples and have starred together on Broadway, most recently in the 2022 revival of Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite.
Before Broderick, Parker’s most significant relationship was with Robert Downey Jr., whom she dated for about seven years, from 1984 to 1991. Both have spoken about the relationship since; Downey has acknowledged that his drug addiction at the time was central to the breakup, and the two have expressed mutual warmth in later interviews.
Parker and Broderick have three children: son James Wilkie Broderick, born in 2002, and twin daughters Marion and Tabitha, born via surrogate in 2009. The family divides its time between Manhattan’s West Village and homes in the Hamptons and Ireland. Parker is famously protective of her children’s privacy.
What Is Sarah Jessica Parker Doing Now? Latest News for 2025-2026
The 2025-2026 stretch has been one of the busiest of Parker’s career, even with Carrie Bradshaw retired. The headlines:
- The end of And Just Like That: The series finale aired August 14, 2025, ending the Carrie Bradshaw story after 27 years. Parker has said the decision was creative and mutual with Michael Patrick King, and in recent interviews she has not ruled out returning to the franchise someday if the right idea emerged.
- Booker Prize judge: Parker served on the 2025 Booker Prize panel, which awarded the prize to David Szalay’s novel Flesh in November 2025.
- Carol Burnett Award: She received the Golden Globes’ lifetime achievement award for television in January 2026.
- Documentary producing: She executive produced The Librarians, a documentary about librarians fighting book bans that premiered at Sundance in 2025 and reached the 2026 BAFTA documentary longlist.
- Commencement speaker: Northwestern University announced Parker as its Class of 2026 commencement speaker.
- Business as usual: The SJP Collection shoe line and her SJP Lit publishing imprint with Zando remain active, keeping her at the intersection of fashion and books, which is exactly where Carrie Bradshaw’s creator belongs.
Sarah Jessica Parker FAQ: People Also Ask
How old is Sarah Jessica Parker?
Sarah Jessica Parker is 61 years old. She was born on March 25, 1965, in Nelsonville, Ohio.
What is Sarah Jessica Parker’s net worth?
Sarah Jessica Parker’s net worth is estimated at around $200 million. Her wealth comes from Sex and the City salaries and producing fees, the And Just Like That revival, her SJP footwear and fragrance businesses, and real estate she owns with Matthew Broderick.
Who is Sarah Jessica Parker married to?
She has been married to actor Matthew Broderick, star of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and a two-time Tony winner, since 1997. Theirs is one of the longest-running marriages in Hollywood.
Does Sarah Jessica Parker have children?
Yes, she has three children: son James Wilkie Broderick, born in 2002, and twin daughters Marion and Tabitha, born via surrogate in 2009.
Are Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Cattrall friends?
No, they are not close, though Parker denies an active feud. Cattrall has publicly distanced herself from Parker since 2018 and declined to fully return to the franchise, appearing only in a brief, separately filmed cameo in And Just Like That in 2023.
Why did And Just Like That end?
The show ended by creative choice, not cancellation. Parker and showrunner Michael Patrick King decided season three was the right place to conclude Carrie’s story, announcing the ending in August 2025 ahead of the finale.
Conclusion: Why Sarah Jessica Parker Still Matters
Sarah Jessica Parker’s career is a rare thing: a child actor who became a sitcom star, then a movie actress, then the face of a television revolution, and finally a producer, publisher, and businesswoman with influence far beyond the screen. She said goodbye to Carrie Bradshaw in 2025 on her own terms, then promptly judged one of literature’s biggest prizes and accepted one of television’s highest honors. Whatever comes next, from books to Broadway to a possible Sex and the City return, audiences will be watching.