Oop! Sarah Jessica Parker Finally Addressed Carrie Bradshaw And Big’s Toxic Relationship

At this point, basically everyone’s got an opinion on Carrie Bradshaw and her love life. The woman has been a part of the cultural zeitgeist for nearly years now, never really going away thanks to the original Sex and the City series, the movies, and the reboot And Just Like That… She’s just always there, so much so that sometimes I need to remind myself that she is, in fact, a fictional character and not a real-life eccentric aunt floating around the periphery of my life.

And so everyone has thoughts about Carrie, and everyone is pretty much either Team Big or Team Aidan. (Here’s where I admit I’ve gone rogue and I’m a closet Berger apologist, but that’s besides the point.) Even Sarah Jessica Parker, the woman who’s brought Carrie to life all these years, just chimed in with her own thoughts on Carrie and Big’s iconically toxic relationship.

For the somehow uninitiated into the cult of Sex and the City, here’s your primer: Carrie and Big (played by Chris Noth) were in an on-again/off-again situationship for all of the original series, and then they finally tied the knot in the first series. When the cast came back for And Just Like That…, the audience got a big shocker with Big’s surprise death at the end of the premiere episode. But not only was the audience shocked, but SJP was also a little freaked out by Big’s death. Read on for her thoughts, and Sarah Jessica Parker’s quotes about how toxic Carrie and Big really were.

What did Sarah Jessica Parker say about Carrie and Big’s relationship?

Image Credit: HBO

SJP talked to E! News ahead of the season 3 premiere of And Just Like That… on May 29, and she explained that she totally understands some of fans’ “objections” to Carrie and Big’s relationship. I should hope so; between all the pining and cheating and getting strung along, I wouldn’t exactly call their relationship the stuff they write Hallmark cards about.

But even with her acknowledgement of those justified objections, SJP still pointed out that there was a lot of love between Carrie and Big… along with a lot of other (sometimes toxic) feelings, too. “All of it was a mess, and all of it was wonderful,” she said. “It was romantic, and it was a disaster. It was destructive, and it was healthy.”

SJP also shared how it was hard to close the chapter on Big when the character died. “Big dying was really, really hard to do both professionally and personally,” she explained. “That’s not just a thread. It’s one of the main arteries that you would struggle to do without.”

“It just felt really untethered,” she added. “It was really sad to say goodbye to that.” We get it, Carrie, you have a hard time leaving your toxic ex behind. But at least you have Aidan to go back to.