This is how Sex And The City actually came to be

In case you've ever wondered

We know you know that Sex and the City was a book before it was a TV series but did you realise that it was actually a newspaper column first?

Yeah, author Candace Bushnell is basically Carrie Bradshaw. (Kind of.)

And although dedicated SATC fans might have already known that, the history of Candace's column has always been shrouded somewhat in secrecy until now.

In an article for The Hollywood Reporter, the former journalist-turned-novelist revealed just how Sex and the City came to be and how Carrie Bradshaw (and her tutu) was born - and it wasn't all champagne bottles and Louboutins.

The women's magazine journalist landed a job at The New York Observer and came to have her own column, despite the 'openly sexist environment.'

‘I said "Great!" I knew it was my big break. I don't know if there was another woman at the Observer who had her own column, but I was pretty much the only one, and I was really going to make it work,’ Candace said. ‘I thought about it, and I realized if it was going to be something that I was going to write all the time, I had to be able to do it really well. So I said, "I think it should be about me and my friends, who are all single and crazy.'

Her editor (who yes, was a man) came up with the title and sent her to a sex club for her first assignment. But, she put her foot down when she realised that kind of content wouldn't work in a weekly column so she started exploring relationships instead. And, the rest is history; her column was such a success that people were starting to buy the paper just to read it.

Four months in, she was being contacted by industry people who wanted to make it a film or TV show: ‘I started to get inquiries from Hollywood. People in New York who worked in film and media were faxing it to their friends who worked in film in Los Angeles. I flew out to L.A. and had meetings. I was like, "What the hell?"’

After two years, Candace decided to end her column and focus on writing books instead and that's when HBO got in touch.

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