“As they say on The Bachelor, don’t get involved for the wrong reasons” Candace Bushnell says.
Candace Bushnell is not currently dating — and she’s okay with that.
Sex and the City‘s OG Carrie Bradshaw is back in the Big Apple, starring in her one-woman Off-Broadway show Is There Still Sex in the City?.
“I’m not dating, and I’m not in a relationship, and that’s fine. I’m not saying that I won’t in the future, but I think the reality is when you get older, you’re not so worried about it,” Bushnell, 63, tells PEOPLE.
It’s been over two decades since the fashion-forward columnist began writing about her late-night rendezvous as a single woman for her New York Observer column, Sex and the City, in 1994.
Her tales of being unattached were so beloved that they were adapted into her bestselling Sex and the City anthology that inspired the hit 1990s HBO series of the same name starring Sarah Jessica Parker. The rom-com eventually spawned two feature films, and now a revival of the series titled And Just Like That… premieres Thursday on HBO Max.
But at Off-Broadway’s Daryl Roth Theatre, Bushnell takes the reins to personally share her stories and sexcapades. “It’s so great to play me and not have an actress playing me,” she says.
In Is There Still Sex in the City?, which officially opened Tuesday in Manhattan’s Union Square, Bushnell invites audiences into her living room to recount her days as a struggling writer and relive her past relationships, including her marriage to ballet dancer Charles Askegard that ended in divorce in 2012, among others.
“My original idea for this was I really wanted it to feel like people were coming to my living room, and in fact, that couch [on the stage] was in my living room. In the photograph from Elle Decor, there’s a green couch that I’m lying on. It’s that same couch,” she says. “I wanted the feeling of when I was writing Sex and the City, I would have a bunch of girlfriends come over, and we would discuss a topic, like we would discuss the modelizers or all kinds of things, threesomes, whatever!”
Bushnell is open and honest with her audiences, touching upon the fact that she’s single again in her 60s and doesn’t have any children. However, she insists that she doesn’t have “any regrets,” adding: “I don’t actually know any women who don’t have kids who regret not having kids.”
The writer says she’s actually learned some important life lessons about sex and relationships along her journey.
“You’ve got to hang onto your soul,” she says. “You have to be true to yourself, and as they say on The Bachelor, don’t get involved for the wrong reasons.”
She adds, “In a place like New York, you come across a lot of people who… They really have an agenda, as you know. And that can be a little bit disheartening, but you’ve got to hold on to your humanity.”
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