‘Sex and the City’: 10 Times Carrie Was a Terrible Friend, Ranked
Carrie Bradshaw, the one and only. The queen of the sidewalk stiletto, the mid-day Cosmopolitan, and being, at times, the most terribly relatable TV character from the late ’90s and early aughts.
Since 1998, Carrie has dated 28 men, had three long-term boyfriends, hosted two wedding ceremonies, and galavanted through the most fabulous city in the world with her three besties: Charlotte (Kristin Davis), Samantha (Kim Cattrall), and Miranda (Cynthia Nixon). But someone needs to get these girlfriends a gold sticker because they had to endure quite a bit with the lofty, inconsiderate, and often self-centered writer.
Since the series’ comeback on popular streamers Max and, more recently, Netflix, Sex and the City has sparked discourse in the culture yet again, this time revolving around how Carrie may be the worst character to ever wear that much Chanel. All we can say: she’s lucky she’s cute. Played by the just-as-chic-if-not-more New Yorker Sarah Jessica Parker, Carrie stole – and broke – a multitude of hearts over the course of her still ongoing run of her iconic Sex and the City character. (Yes, it was recently announced that spinoff series And Just Like That has begun shooting its third season. Huzzah!)
From blowing her friends off to rambling endlessly about her on-and-off again relationships, Carrie has clearly needed a therapist – albeit she (kind of) tried in Season 2. For a show about female friendships, this protagonist often missed that memo.
We couldn’t help but wonder… Inside every confident, fashionable, New York writer, is there a selfish, codependent nicotine addict just waiting to be unleashed on her best friends? Below, we’ve compiled the top 10 moments when this Libra queen of the Cosmopolitan was an atrociously bad friend.
10. When She Stands Up a Group of New Friends for Aleksandr
Season 6, Episode 20 “An American Girl in Paris”
After moving to Paris with the famous artist Aleksandr Petrovsky (Mikhail Baryshnikov), Carrie endures two long weeks of longing for new friendships. When she finally hits a big break and gets recognized at a local French bookstore, a group of young and hip Parisians offer to throw her a party, which she agrees to attend. What does she do instead? She stands up her new friends for her boyfriend’s art exhibit. By the time she actually arrives at the restaurant in question, the wine has stopped flowing and stained copies of her book are left abandoned at the dirtied table – deservedly so.
9. When All Carrie Can Talk About Is Her Breakup With Berger
Season 6, Episode 7 “The Post-It Always Sticks Twice”
All Carrie can talk about this episode is her trivial breakup with her long(ish) term boyfriend and fellow writer Berger (Ron Livingston), who breaks up with her the night before via a post-it note. To make matters worse, Charlotte just announced her engagement to Harry (Evan Handler), which takes a backseat to Carrie’s attention span. If brevity truly is the soul of wit, Berger may have won this battle because Carrie cannot go a single scene without bringing up her newly minted ex. Oh, and on their big girls’ night out to celebrate Charlotte’s engagement, she picks a fight, buys pot, and almost gets arrested.
8. When Carrie Abandons a Blindfolded Charlotte to Buy Shoes
Season 6, Episode 13 “Let There Be Light”
In an effort to do more volunteering work, Charlotte is tasked by a social worker to blindfold herself in public to better understand what it’s like to be blind. When Charlotte decides to bring Carrie along to make sure she stays out of harm’s way, Carrie quickly abandons her blindfolded friend to talk on the phone with her new boyfriend Aleksandr. When she looks up and Charlotte is nowhere to be found, instead of desperately searching for her lost friend, where does Carrie go instead? The shoe section, of course. (And yes, that is in fact Andy Cohen.)
7. When She Kicks Samantha Out of their Hotel Room for Big
Season 5, Episode 7 “The Big Journey”
When Carrie goes to California for her book tour, she invites Samantha for moral support should she happen to meet up with Big (Chris Noth), who now lives in Napa. Carrie, afraid of planes, insists that the two of them take a cross-country train instead. Samantha, arguably the best friend of the show, agrees but is rightfully disappointed by the shabby showing of their train car. To top it off, while taking a bath in their luxury suite at the hotel, Samantha is forced out of the tub by Carrie, who wants the suite to herself to try to seduce Big, who ends up showing face.
6. When Carrie Stands Miranda Up for Veal With Big
Season 2, Episode 8 “The Man, The Myth, The Viagra”
Miranda and Big have always butt heads throughout the series, but this minor feud in particular is one for the books. In this episode, Miranda calls Carrie from a bar to see where she is, assuming she is just running fashionably late. Unfortunately for Miranda, Carrie admits that she tried leaving Miranda a message on her home phone that she was staying in for dinner with Big instead. But not just any dinner; a veal dinner! Much better, right? Forget about last-minute cancellations, this is a non-cancellation. Miranda was worried sick, but at least, for better and for worse, this was how Steve (David Eigenberg) snuck his way into Miranda’s life and the greater SATC universe.
5. When Carrie Lies to Charlotte About Her Affair With Big
Season 3, Episode 11 “Running with Scissors”
While at a fancy hotel in a random part of the city (56th and 8th, to be exact), Carrie meets Big for another rendezvous, and Big is still very much married to Natasha (Bridget Moynahan). After being mistaken for a hooker, Carrie runs out of the hotel only to bump into Charlotte, who sees Big and Carrie and puts two and two together. Later, Charlotte, like a good friend, confronts Carrie on the matter, given she herself is about to be a bride. However, Carrie only denies the recurring nature of the affair and falsely declares that her meetups with Big are over (in fact, they are far from it). At the very least, Carrie rightly coins herself the “maid of dishonor.”
4. When Carrie Shames Samantha Over Her Chemical Peel
Season 5, Episode 5 “Plus One is the Loneliest Number”
Carrie’s ability to speak so harshly to the women she calls her best friends will never not be a surprise. When Samantha arrives at Carrie’s book party after having recently gotten a chemical peel, Carrie does not hold back. Not only does she tell Samantha that she has to hide her face and that she’s scaring the guests, but she eventually just tells Samantha to leave – probably the rudest thing you could ask of your publicist, let alone your best friend, without whom there would be no party.
3. When Carrie Judges Samantha for Hooking Up With Her Delivery Man
Season 5, Episode 4 “Cover Girl”
Among some of Carrie’s more unsavory qualities is her shockingly prude judgments of the sex-positive women in her life, one of the most prominent being the iconically promiscuous Samantha. In this episode, Carrie walks in on Samantha in a compromising position with a delivery man. For the rest of the episode, Carrie proceeds to tease and sex-shame one of her best friends, until Samantha rightfully stands up for herself: “I will wear whatever and blow whomever I want, as long as I can breathe and kneel.” You go, girl.
2. When Carrie Gets Mad That Charlotte Won't Give Her Money to Buy Back Her Apartment
Season 4, Episode 16 “Ring a Ding Ding”
Carrie truly exists in her own reality, and there is no better showing of this than her second breakup with Aidan (John Corbett). In a time crunch to buy back her apartment from him in 30 days or leave her apartment for good, Carrie receives an outpouring of support from many of her friends – Miranda and Samantha both offer to loan her the money. Big even writes her a check, which she rightfully declines. Carrie decides to focus, however, on the lack of outreach from Charlotte, who just received her large settlement from her split with Trey. Despite being in literal shoe debt (as Carrie has less than $2,000 in her bank account but thousands in designer heels), Carrie somehow musters up the gall to shame Charlotte for being a bad friend. Charlotte ends up gifting Carrie her engagement ring, which Carrie sells for the money she ends up using to buy back her apartment. Did she ever reimburse Charlotte? I wouldn’t bet any designer shoes on it.
1. When Carrie Sends Aidan to Save Miranda
Season 4, Episode 7 “Time and Punishment”
When Miranda hurts her neck and calls for help, her best friend’s boyfriend is surely the last person she would’ve wanted to see. But who arrives at Miranda’s door when she’s unable to get off her bathroom floor? Aidan. The chivalrous furniture designer really shows up for both Carrie and Miranda, despite having just been arguing with Carrie about her affair with Big. Given Miranda is naked, scared, and hurt, both she and Aidan put on a brave face, eventually getting Miranda to the hospital. Despite being Miranda’s emergency contact, Carrie decides to send Aidan in her stead in order to meet with her editor. To top it off, Carrie shows up to Miranda’s apartment the next day in a seemingly well-intentioned gesture, laden with bagels, until Miranda realizes Carrie’s only come to talk about her issues with Aidan. Plus, she even forgot to bring the cream cheese.
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