Sarah Jessica Parker opened up about the negative criticism she received about her looks after launching to new levels of fame on “Sex and the City,” and detailed how it eventually left her sobbing.
Parker stopped by Wednesday’s episode of “Call Her Daddy” to discuss all things “Sex and the City” and a little bit of “And Just Like That” which is currently airing its third season. Host Alex Cooper talked about how the original show was one of the first series to really celebrate female confidence and asked how Parker felt about herself off-camera at the time.
“I do think that being on a television show in particular that grabs people’s attention was probably a real test of coping, like my coping mechanisms, because I wasn’t prepared,” Parker said. “This was before social media, so I really wasn’t prepared for public commentary. And I think that was really unpleasant at times when people would have opinions not about the work.”
The actress, who played Carrie Bradshaw on the original series for six seasons from 1998-2004, talked about how criticism of the show, characters or plotlines were one thing, but comments about her appearance were another.
“It was the personal stuff that I was really not prepared for. So at that time I thought I was a fairly confident person, not boastful, not, it wouldn’t be a confidence you could detect,” Parker recalled. “But I think it really comes into question and is tested when you’re kind of filleted in a way.”
Parker added that experience made her better in the long run but Cooper was quick to add that while it may have made her stronger, negative comments still cut deep. The “And Just Like That” actress agreed and said a large part of it was that it was the first time people were judging her in a public way. The “Call Her Daddy” host asked what some of the hardest comments to swallow were.
“Just discussions of my physical person. Like stuff that I couldn’t change. I wouldn’t change and had never considered changing,” Parker said. “I didn’t feel like it was actually a conversation. I didn’t feel like I could sit in a room and someone would say to me, ‘You’re really unattractive.’ And then I could say, ‘Wow. Well first of all, that’s hard to hear. But second of all, ‘why do you seem angry about it or why do you feel it’s a necessary comment to say?’”
Parker recalled the breaking point for her was when a popular magazine chimed in with negative comments about her appearance.
“I think it was really only one time. And I don’t really remember specifically the occasion except it was brought to my attention that a magazine said something really, really mean about, you know, who I am, how I look,” the “Hocus Pocus” actress recalled. “And I was like, it was like a kick in the rubber parts. I was just like, ‘Why is this a problem? Why is this deserving of your time and why do you seem to delight in saying it?’”
“It was just like an accumulation of like maybe a season of that kind of commentary, which nobody was trying to make me aware of it. But it gets, you know, it gets in,” she said.
Parker and Cooper discussed how the landscape has shifted, not in the amount of negative commentary about women’s looks but that now with the quickness of social media there is a platform for women to defend themselves a bit more against backlash.
“Women have to actually look like a statue where we celebrate men and a beer belly,” Cooper said of the issue. “It’s just the double standards are insane […] and I appreciate you sharing that because I think so many women watching this would be like ‘Wait what? You’re literally one of the most beautiful women in the world.’ Yet, here we are. We can never be good enough so at one point you have to just let it go.”
You can watch the full “Call Her Daddy” episode in the video above. You can listen to the full podcast episode here.
