Sex and the City's Mr Big Was Inspired By a Very Real Man
Just how similar are Carrie's boyfriend and his prototype?
It's mind-boggling when you realise that Sex and the City has been around for twenty-five years now. The cult HBO show premiered in June 1998 and revolutionised TV as we knew it. Offering a female-centred narrative, SATC explored the challenges of young women's lives in New York as they navigated their professional and personal lives.
Becoming an instant hit with audiences, the show ran for six seasons and spawned two big-screen adaptations and two spin-offs, the latest of which, And Just Like That…, is currently airing on Max.
What's more remarkable, though, is that Sex and the City was based on a Candace Bushnell of the same name, which, in turn, was an anthology of her newspaper column articles. The author worked for The New York Observer in the mid-1990s. According to Bushnell, the outlet's editor-in-chief offered her the opportunity to run a free-themed column. Bushnell seized this chance and penned humorous stories covering her and her friends' dating experiences in the Big Apple.
In this light, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the four central characters were largely based on real people. Did you know, however, that the infamous Mr. Big also had a real-life prototype in Bushnell's life?
Carrie Bradshaw's best/worst boyfriend and husband was modelled after Candace's real-life ex-boyfriend. Ron Galotti, the publisher of such prominent periodicals as Variety, Vanity Fair, and GQ, served as the inspiration for Mr. Big in Bushnell's writings. New York Magazine reports that the two met at a party in 1995. Their affair lasted for just over a year and was chronicled by Candace in her column.
Why 'Mr. Big' you could ask?
'He was one of those New York guys with a big personality – you just notice him as soon as he walks in the room,' Bushnell once said. 'I called him Mr. Big because he was like a big man on campus.'
And just like that, one of SATC's most memorable characters was born. Nevertheless, Bushnell admitted that Mr. Big couldn't compete with Galotti – the latter was a much more balanced person and partner than Carrie's fickle lover. All the same, it's fascinating to discover such intricate details all these years later. Clearly, Sex and the City can still surprise us.
Source: New York Magazine.