The release of the Sex And The City reboot, And Just Like That, was undeniably tainted with a wave of sexual assault allegations made against actor Chris Noth, best-known for his role as Big in the iconic series.
In December 2021, The Hollywood Reporter published a piece in which two women claimed that Noth had sexually assaulted them, with The Daily Beast publishing a third woman’s allegations two days later. These women were all unknown to each other and had approached the publications at separate times, with two women claiming their assault occurred in 2010 and the other in 2015.
In the wake of the allegations, Noth was fired from his role on The Equalizer, with AJLT quickly removing him from certain scenes where he was featured later in the series. A few days after these claims came to light, Cynthia Nixon, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kristin Davis released a joint statement on Instagram, where they wrote that they were ‘deeply saddened’ and ‘support the women’ who had come forward.
Despite this, it seems that SJP still isn’t ready to discuss the issue in any further detail.
In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter’s New York Issue, the actress declined to comment on Noth.
“I don’t even know if I’m ready to talk about it, but I don’t think … I wasn’t reacting as a producer. I should have worked on this because I’m just … it’s just…,” she said, before trailing off.
When directly asked if she’d spoken to Noth following the claims, she had a one word answer — “No.”
In the same interview, SJP addressed the significant backlash the reboot had faced, arguing that the burden wasn’t on her, as she wasn’t the one responsible for the writing of the show.
“The burden is not on me because I can’t write, but [showrunner] Michael [Patrick King] knew that,” she told the publication. “[The question was] how do we open that world up? And how do we make it real? We have a great writing room of, once again, all women, but the room is more diverse now. That wasn’t a mandate, no one told us it had to be that way. Michael wanted it that way, and it will continue to evolve.”
Parker is aware that the original series is now significantly dated, having referred to it as a “relic” in past interviews. The show’s depiction of class, race and sexuality is a far cry from the world we’re living in today, and several of the original cast members have acknowledged that it doesn’t have a place in our modern day world.
Speaking to Grazia in 2020, Cynthia Nixon (who plays Miranda Hobbes) spoke about the original series and its lack of diversity.
“I was always troubled by how un-diverse it was,” she told the outlet. “Certainly racially, but also how the slice of New York city it was showing was so incredibly affluent. Miranda’s husband was the only representation of anybody who didn’t have money for days. I guess Carrie didn’t have money for days, but you would never know it by the way she spent!”
Nixon was reluctant to join the reboot, but after seeing how hard everyone was working to ensure the show was more inclusive, decided to come on board.
After the reboot had aired, fans were quickly divided. Some praised the show for its efforts to champion diversity, while others accused it of being tokenistic. For SJP, it was never realistic to please everyone, and regardless of the criticism, said she is still happy with the direction the show took.
“Obviously, we’re aware that people have opinions, and there will be peripheral chatter specific to the HBO show,” she told The Hollywood Reporter. “We care that they’re engaged and enjoying it, flipped out, upset, thrilled, devastated, but you can’t have a result in mind and then try to back into it with the writing. That would just be awful. And that would be like riding a bike with a gang of 10 million.”
It is unclear if or when any cast members will speak about the allegations against Noth, but for now, it seems SJP in particular still has more processing to do.
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