The conversation surrounding the return of Sex and the City’s Sarah Jessica Parker, Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon to our screens in December 2021 was, unsurprisingly, overwhelmingly concerning the actor’s ageing. Whether they were deemed to have aged gracefully, whether they had had cosmetic work done, and sometimes simply just observations that they miraculously looked older than they did when they were last on our screens some 20 years ago.
In a new interview, Sarah Jessica Parker spoke of a moment last year when she went viral after a photo showed her with no make-up on and natural hair while out for lunch in New York City. Speaking to Allure, Parker said, “It became months and months of conversation about how brave I am for having grey hair,” adding, “I was like, please please applaud someone else’s courage on something!”
Parker went on to say there’s a “double standard” when men aren’t privy to the same rhetoric.
“We never talk about that with the other sex,” Parker continued. “We don’t say to them: ‘Here’s a cream to pretend this didn’t happen.’” Recalling the photo again, SJP questioned why her friend, Andy Cohen, who was also in the photo, didn’t receive the same comments.
“Andy has a full head of beautiful grey hair,” she said. “But no one mentioned him, sitting right next to me. Not a soul.”
“I’m not angry, it’s just an observation… Some of it hurts for a minute, it smarts,” Parker added. And some of it confounds me because of the double standard that is so plainly illustrated.”
Earlier this year, Parker’s And Just Like That co-star Kristin Davis spoke of the conversation around her ageing while speaking to New Beauty. “It can be extremely stressful to be ageing and to be compared to your much, much, much younger self,” she said at the time.
“If I was from a regular life, I would feel fine; I would feel great! I’m healthy, I’m strong, I’ve got this little three-year-old son, and I carry him around and it’s all good – but, no, I’m on television, where every bit of my physical being is analysed.”
