By Sondra Barr
Sarah Jessica Parker turned 60 in March, and if the milestone gives her pause, you wouldn’t know it from the pace of her days. She still reads between appointments, still guards the ordinary rhythms of family life, and still delights in the creative problem-solving of a new project—on stage, on screen, or at a drafting table sketching jewelry.
The woman who helped define a generation’s relationship with New York City and stilettos hasn’t slowed; she’s simply refined. As she puts it, fashion and life alike don’t need to be air-brushed to shine. “It doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful,” she said recently to writer Melanie Bromley for Hello! “Sometimes it’s the little quirks that make it yours.”
From Small-Town Roots to the Big Stage
Parker’s story begins far from Fifth Avenue. Born in Nelsonville, Ohio, she grew up one of eight children, in a home where money was scarce but creative ambition was encouraged. Her mother, Barbara, nudged the family toward opportunity, moving them to New York when Parker was 11 so several of the children could train and audition. Two years later, she joined Annie on Broadway and eventually took over the title role. By 13, she had logged a professional résumé most adult actors covet: stage work, ballet and acting classes, and the beginnings of a film career. From that early sprint came the first starring TV role—Square Pegs—and, in time, the larger cultural moment that would knit her name to a character forever.
Carrie, Culture, and Career Longevity
Overnight success often happens, not in Parker’s case. Decade by decade, she moved from Footloose and L.A. Story to Hocus Pocus and a steady rotation of plays, including How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, where she performed with her future husband, Matthew Broderick. Then came HBO’s Sex and the City in 1998, and an alchemy that fused Parker’s comic precision with a character’s vulnerability so indelibly that “Carrie Bradshaw” became cultural shorthand. Along the way, Parker collected six Golden Globes and two Primetime Emmys, but more telling is how she has metabolized scrutiny and success—sometimes by stepping away from the noise.
Graceful Endings and New Beginnings
In recent seasons, she returned to Carrie in And Just Like That… and helped guide the decision to bring the new chapter to a graceful close. “Sometimes it’s best to gracefully walk away when things feel really right and energetic,” she told CBS Mornings this fall, adding—ever the pragmatic artist—“I’m not certain I understand what that decision means, because I could just be on hiatus.” The sentiment lands like a thesis statement for a working life built on instinct and respect for the audience: do the work, protect the joy, know when to shift.
Home, Family, and the Red Carpet Balance
That equilibrium extends beyond sets and rehearsal rooms. Parker and Broderick married in 1997 on the Lower East Side and now live in Greenwich Village with their son and twin daughters. The family life is ordinary in all the grounding ways—homework, dinner, logistics—and yet it coexists with the red-carpet chapter headings: 12 Met Gala appearances, including the tartan McQueen triumph in 2006 that still lives rent-free in fashion’s collective memory. For Parker, those moments are the result of long conversations and precise choices.
If the public sees the gowns and camera flashes, Parker looks for work that outlasts applause. She’s the rare marquee talent who also cherishes the desk work: producing, editing, reading. As one of the 2025 Booker Prize judges, she’s reading at an industrial clip and tinkering with process to keep pace. “I have started to read with a different kind of energy,” she explained, offering a reader’s practical magic for busy lives: there’s always time—“in between appointments or calls or waiting for a bus… those little windows of time are much more valuable,” and she “just never leave[s] home without a book.”
Style Meets Substance
Her parallel life in fashion and fragrance has never been a costume change; it’s an extension of curiosity. There was a long-running perfume line, a shoe brand that became a staple for many, and now a new chapter that feels both modern and quintessentially SJP: lab-grown diamonds. Parker recently joined Astrea London as global creative director and shareholder, partnering closely with founder Nathalie Morrison and launching a 12-piece collection.
The choice is aesthetic and ethical. “After wandering deep into the world of lab-grown diamonds, I’ve fallen in love with their possibility, their beauty, and their future,” she wrote on Instagram. For Parker, diamonds are more than dazzle: “They carry stories, history and a sense of eternity… Fashion is ever-changing, but a diamond is timeless – it becomes part of your life, your memories,” she told Bromley. The collection—featuring colored stones—debuts in Dubai on December 8, and a portion of profits will support underprivileged children in Africa, a philanthropic throughline that moves her.
Grounded by Perspective
If you’re tempted to confuse Parker and Bradshaw’s appetites, she’ll draw the line. “I’ve been with my husband for 33 years – I’ve got kids. My single life was far less colorful… I was much more frugal, much more thoughtful about a savings account,” she told British Vogue this spring, before sketching the chasm between Carrie’s leisure and her own decades of steady work. That sensibility was formed early. At 18, between auditions and odd jobs, she learned to make $40 cover three days. “There’s security in financial gain” and “security in being able to pay your bills,” she reflected on the Call Her Daddy podcast.
Fame hasn’t insulated her from perspective. In Hello magazine, Parker declined the familiar “work-life balance” fable: “I feel peculiar and uncomfortable talking about balance. I just don’t think it’s something I should comment on, out of respect for working parents.” She pointed to the reality of people holding “two to three jobs with no support,” adding, simply, “I am choosing to be a working person.”
Keeping What Matters
Parker’s relationship with nostalgia is equally pragmatic. In Vogue’s December 2021 cover story, she revealed she kept “every single solitary thing”—wardrobe, props, furniture—from Sex and the City, meticulously catalogued and stored by season and scene. It’s an archivist’s impulse, but also a creative question mark: what do we keep, and why?
That blend of tenderness and clear-eyed resolve is part of her public resilience. Cultural weather shifts, opinions corkscrew online, but she’s unlikely to be whiplashed by a comment thread. It isn’t indifference so much as keeping her focus. When asked about the swirl around And Just Like That…—praise, criticism, and the strange subculture of people who watch to nitpick—she’s said: “I guess I don’t really care,” mindful that connection, not consensus, sustains a story.
Living Well, Her Way
So, what does “living well” look like for Parker at 60? It’s a life that accommodates astonishment—the thrill of Iris van Herpen wings at the 2025 New York City Ballet Gala—without requiring spectacle. It’s a desk strewn with manuscripts and a tote bag with a novel tucked inside. It’s the small anarchies of style—necklace off-center, a dash of tartan—to remind us that personal beauty resists symmetry. It’s a marriage that began in a downtown synagogue and a home life that insists on dinner, homework, and endless laundry.
And it’s work. The kind that started when she was 8 and never really paused. She doesn’t romanticize the grind; she makes it humane. “Reading is a mostly solitary experience,” she said of her Booker duties, “but judging has been hugely helpful” because it’s shared—an art form re-imagined as conversation.”
Parker’s story is, at its core, about balance. She’s managed to hold on to a sense of normalcy while living a very un-normal life. One day she might be at a gala or on set, and the next she’s home making dinner or helping with homework. It’s that mix of glamour and everyday life that keeps her grounded.
She’s not chasing perfection these days—she’s just interested. Interested in new projects, in good stories, in figuring things out. Curiosity has always been her quiet superpower, whether it’s diving into a book between appointments or helping design a new jewelry line.
At 60, Parker seems settled but never still. She’s still creating, still learning, still showing that a good life doesn’t have to be flawless—it just has to be real.
