Single mums in 40s should not be dating, says Sex & City writer Candace Bushnell who talks romance with show’s star
AS the woman who inspired Sex And The City and its main character Carrie Bradshaw, Candace Bushnell is well versed in giving women dating advice.
Now the 64-year-old, whose newspaper columns formed the basis of the hit TV series, has set her sights on helping 40-something single mothers.
And she implores them not to jump into relationships while their kids are still at home — and not to rely on a man for their happiness.
She says: “There’s a big difference between somebody who’s 40 and somebody who’s 55 and is postmenopausal and their kids are grown and moved out.
“If you’re in your forties, single and with kids at home, I don’t think dating is a good idea. Instead, I think it’s about taking care of yourself and understanding that you’re responsible for your own happiness.
“It’s not about falling into this myth of an idea that a relationship will make your life work.”
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Try telling that to the likes of presenter Kirsty Gallacher, 47, or singer Louise Redknapp, 49 — both vibrant and thriving single mothers out on the dating scene.
But Candace continues: “There are some women who have been married for 20 or 30 years, then they get divorced and they are so happy to have their freedom.”
The author, who was married to dancer Charles Askegard, 54, between 2002 and 2012, is now happily single and believes women should not be ashamed of embracing their independence and looking out for themselves.
‘It takes a lot of guts to be child-free’
She says: “I just don’t feel the way about relationships that most people do. I think that a relationship is just one part of a person’s life and if you’re in one it’s very important to have something that is your thing.
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“Heterosexual relationships tend to be situations where women are secondary. Men tend to have a bit of the upper hand — they have the money, they have the power. I’m not really interested in doing that.
“It’s really about whether or not you want to be the number one person in your own life.”
Putting her own life and work ahead of finding love has paid off for Candace, who will be bringing her one-woman show, True Tales Of Sex, Success And Sex And The City, to the UK next year.
From humble beginnings as an aspiring writer in Manhattan in the late 1980s, her New York Observer newspaper column, which was based on her dating life, set tongues wagging all over Manhattan when it launched in 1994.
It became the inspiration for the TV show, which ran for six seasons and two spin-off movies and starred Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie — a fictionalised version of Candace – plus, co-stars Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon and Kim Cattrall as her single New York friends Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha.
It made Candace a household name — and a fair bit of money — overnight.
But one thing she never had, by choice, was children. She says: “I didn’t want to be a mother. I think it’s great to have kids if you want to have kids but it’s not necessarily the right thing for me.
“Society tells women that having kids is really their only value. And I think that’s a terrible shame.
“It takes a lot of guts to be child-free, because you’re going to be in a very small percentage of women. You have to be a very brave and confident woman to buck that system.”
So does she think of herself as brave?
“I’d say I’m brave for not having kids, yes,” she says. “But I feel like that’s the right thing for me. And I’ve never actually gone out with someone who wanted kids. It wasn’t a deliberate thing, it’s just the way it was.
“I never really even talked about having kids with most of the men that I dated. I didn’t grow up in an era where people thought that being a parent was a fabulous thing.
“I grew up in the Sixties where people really felt that kids were a burden. It was an environment where people felt that having kids was inevitable, unavoidable and wasn’t the best thing that ever happened to you in your life.
“Today, people feel like having kids is the most wonderful thing. And if that’s your choice, I celebrate it.”
With a glamorous life of parties, schmoozing and remaining one of Manhattan’s most celebrated ‘It’ girls, as well as being busy with her play, dating for Candace is on the backburner.
“I do go out with people, but I’m not really dating anyone,” she says.
However, she did make headlines recently when it was revealed she had been out with a 21-year-old and a 91-year-old in the space of a week, giving an age range of 70 years.
“That was interesting,” she says, laughing, before revealing which age group turned out to be better company.
“With younger guys, they tend to ask more questions,” she says.
“And you know, these older guys, they’ll do an hour or two-hour monologue where they don’t even ask a question about you.
“A lot of women say they’ve been on these dates with men who never asked a question about them and I didn’t really believe it. But yeah, it’s a real thing.”
‘Carrie and Aidan back together felt true to life’
One man who did not fail the date test was actor John Corbett, 62, better known as Carrie’s love interest Aidan on Sex And The City.
Before he met his now wife, Bond girl Bo Derek, 67, in 2002, John and Candace went out for dinner during the original show’s run — but the romance was short-lived.
“He’s a really nice guy, the nicest,” she says. “We had a fun night but it wasn’t going to go anywhere. I’ve seen John and Bo at parties since and they’re wonderful. She’s just so beautiful.”
While it did not work out for Candace and John in real life, their alter egos, Carrie and Aidan, ended up reconciling after decades in And Just Like That, the Sex And The City reboot, following the death of Carrie’s husband, Mr Big.
And Candace is fully behind the decision, despite historically being Team Big. “I thought Carrie and Aidan getting back together was very true to life,” she says.
“This happens to so many people, women who end up with somebody that they dated in high school, or a long time before. It’s really one of the most common dating stories and people end up very happy together. So I thought that storyline made sense.”
But what does she make of the reboot in general, given that Cattrall, Candace’s good friend, famously refused to reprise her role as Samantha Jones (with the exception of a much-hyped cameo at the end of season two)?
She says: “I actually really enjoyed it. There was something in every episode that made me laugh.
“It’s a different show to Sex And The City, but that makes sense. It’s a different time.”
And when it comes to Kim, who once called her relationship with co-star Sarah Jessica “toxic” and refused to do a third spin-off movie, Candace says she respects her decision to distance herself from it.
She says, diplomatically: “It’s impossible for me to look at it from the outside the way the audience looks at it, because I know too much about the mechanics of TV and the show and how it works.
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“I know the actors personally. And Kim is a wonderful woman. She’s a real girl’s girl. And you know, she has her reasons for doing whatever she’s going to do, which I respect.”
- For tickets to her one-woman show True Tales Of Sex, Success And Sex In The City, see candacebushnell.entertainers.co.uk.
