Candace Bushnell walks into the Carlyle Hotel in New York, an uptown vision in a pink cashmere dress and Dolce & Gabbana coat.
A pair of Manolo Blahnik Slingbacks are on her feet.
She settles, crosses her amazing legs, and orders a cappuccino.
‘I feel like celebrating,’ she says. ‘Last night I didn’t forget a single line.’
Candace, 62 years old, has made the brave step to star as herself in a one woman show that just opened on Broadway and will be coming to London next year.

The hit show’s back, older and wiser – like its creator Candace Bushnell, 62, pictured. In a riotous interview she describes single life, how porn’s wrecked romance – and why she decided to have an abortion
Can There still be sex in cities? This is an adaptation of her memoir. It traces her journey from a well-off Connecticut childhood through to her party-loving, cosmo-drinking heyday and on into her marriage, divorce and menopause.
This is a funny, moving, inspiring and poignant performance by Candace, standing on several pairs of 5-inch heels. She was seated on a set with her own pink satin sofa and carpet from her Upper East Side apartment.
She delivers the message that her dogs make her happier than anyone else, and she does it without regret.
‘Actually, being a writer has meant more to me than any man could, unfortunately that is true. Writing is the one thing I have that I can totally rely on,’ she says. ‘One of the reasons why a lot of relationships did not work out for me was a lack of respect from the man towards my work. Totally. And I just I can’t do that.
‘Out in the world, women get a lack of respect, but in the home I need a cheerleader. Many men aren’t like that, because there is only one star to a relationship. And it’s going to be them.’
Bushnell was a sex columnist and relationship columnist at The New York Observer in the 1990s. Back then, she didn’t want her parents to be embarrassed by her frank scrutiny of modern sexual manners in her Sex And The City columns, so she invented a character called Carrie Bradshaw, a chic cipher for Bushnell herself.
Unexpectedly, she still has a strong sense of conservatism in her opinion, something that is unusual for an ex-sexpert. She loathes porn (‘don’t get me started’) and even raises one of her perfect eyebrows at some of the more exuberant passages in E. L. James’ mummyporn bestseller, Fifty Shades Of Grey.
‘Look. I don’t want to say anything negative about the writer. If you can write a book and make millions of dollars, that’s fantastic. Great for you because you know, it’s hard. The book was easy to read, so I began reading it. The guy starts the paragraph by putting a turnip, or some such thing up. . . And I was like, I can’t. I just can’t bear what I have been reading.’
In the velvety plush of the Carlyle’s breakfast parlour, coffee cups are stilled and an enthralled hush descends. ‘Porn has changed sex,’ she continues in her clear, steady voice. ‘I mean, nobody talks about women having orgasms any more.
‘In the early 1980s, the Big O was like a new discovery. Men worked hard to give women orgasms. It felt like there was a pride among men; ‘‘I’m going to please my partner.’’ Now you never hear that. Now it’s all, I’m going to please myself.’
You would like to have a croissant?
‘Now it’s all, I’m going to demand that my partner does things that I see in porn, like anal sex or choking.’
Maybe some toast?

Candace Bushnell is an American author, as seen November 1,
‘Jan, it is all about the man’s pleasure, not the woman’s. You go on a date and it’s transactional; a lot of guys just want their wiener waxed. I don’t want to get into a whole thing about porn, but I am not a fan.
‘It makes the 1990’s look like an age of innocence, it really does. For a start, there was no social media or cell phones back then, so if you wanted to have sex with someone, you had to do it in person, right?’
Damn right.
Sarah Jessica Parker was the Carrie/Candace actress in six episodes of the HBO TV show. Carrie, an unsuitable man lover and lover of gorgeous shoes, was loved by generations of women.
She is now back in Manhattan to continue her stalking of the streets with And Just Like That . The rebooted HBO series will premiere next month.
Carrie is reunited with her gal-pals Charlotte, (Kristin) and Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), but Kim Cattrall won’t be back as Samantha.
Is it possible that she made the best decision?
For nearly three decades later, the landscape of these characters’ lives must have changed completely, along with their physical appearances on and off screen.
Before the show has even been broadcast, the participating actresses have been criticised for daring to age — it’s just so pathetic, but there you go.
Sarah Jessica Parker, now 56, has called comments about her grey hair ‘misogynist chatter’, while Davis (also 56) has been the target of uncharitable comments about plastic surgery treatments. Trolls also target Nixon (55)
‘There are people who feel that women over 50 really shouldn’t even be seen in public,’ sighs Candace, whose own hair is a buttery whip of glamorous blonde and whose toned body bears testament to regular Pilates workouts and a 16,000 steps a day dog walking habit.
However, her vulnerability to ageing can make it difficult for her to be vulnerable. She once spent £3,000 on face creams after a saleswoman told her she had ‘too much filler in the cheeks’. Her double humiliation was compounded by not one, but TWO boyfriends who offered to pay her for a boobjob.

Cynthia Nixon, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis and Sarah Jessica Parker in Sex and the City
‘I’m so flat-chested that one boyfriend’s mother used to call me ‘‘The Ironing Board’’,’ she says. ‘Anyway, there are people out there who are envious, people who just want to put someone down to make themselves feel better. Young men in particular have very rigid ideas about what women should and should not be.’
Of course, the truth is that although they are forever twinned in the collective imagination, Candace’s life diverged from Carrie’s many years ago.
Bushnell didn’t have any more involvement in the TV series Sex And The City after it was made for television.
‘As the show has grown it gets farther and farther away from the source material. I mean, there are fans out there who don’t even know it was originally based on a book,’ she says. ‘Did I earn my fair share from it? I often wonder.
It is rare for women in entertainment to do as well or as fast as men. Certain deals were cut from my contract. And I really shouldn’t talk about it because one’s got to be grateful. Yeah. As a woman back then you were told to be grateful for whatever you got.’

Can There Be Sex in the City! Candace Bushnell will be performing her show as a one-woman on Broadway in New York. This story was adapted from Candace Bushnell’s memoir (pictured). It follows her journey from a well-to-do Connecticut family to her party-loving, cosmo-drinking heyday and on through marriage, divorce and the menopause.
She appears not to be embittered by any of this, not even by the universally panned second film, and not her characters’ tendency to indulge in what one critic called ‘featherbrained feminism’.
‘No, the film wasn’t great, but people did their best,’ she says. ‘And as for everything else, I let that all go a long time ago. I don’t even know what a “Carrie” is any more. I just keep moving forward, trying to explore my own creativity.’
Charles Askegard, a ballet dancer who was married to her, divorced her. Candace, the younger dancer named Candace in divorce papers. She now lives happily in Sag Harbour, the Hamptons, in a happy singledom.
A recent relationship with a millionaire property developer called Jim Coleman has evolved to ‘just good friends’.
‘These things happen. And anyway, he moved to Palm Beach,’ she says.
Many of these events are documented in her stories and on stage, which chart the highlights and lows of her extraordinary life.
‘There I am, 48 years old, my hair falls out, my vagina dries up and I am exhausted,’ she says at one point, cocktail glass in hand, telling it like it is, or was.
On stage she also reveals for the first time that she became pregnant when she was dating ‘a count from Luxembourg’ sometime in the 1980s, but decided to have an abortion.
‘Yes, I did,’ she tells me. ‘And if I had the baby, Sex And The City would not exist. That’s something that people need to understand.
‘Lots of women make this choice because it’s just not the right time. It wasn’t the right time for me to have a child and he wasn’t the right person, he was very unstable.
‘I don’t regret it and I don’t think there is any shame attached to having a termination. To me, bringing a child into the world under the wrong circumstances is what is morally wrong.’
She presents a variety of life lessons on stage, including Men lie about Everything and When it Comes to Sex there is no free lunch. And perhaps the most important: Your Girlfriends Are Forever.
Bushnell appears to be happy settled in a Hamptons life with her dog and single girlfriends, despite all the drama and turmoil of dating. This period she refers to as The Bonus Years.
‘There is so much fun and joy being with a bunch of single women again, all supporting each other, being there for each other. There is a good chance that you will be single in your lifetime. Statistically, it’s going to happen. And it is something that women need to know how to do; you need to know how to be in a relationship and also know how not to be in a relationship.’

Bushnell didn’t have any more involvement in the TV series Sex And The City after it was made for television.
Bushnell’s porcelain doll face looks like a porcelain doll, yet she is slim with an elegant figure.
As a young girl at acting school, she had to learn how to deal with ‘creepy’ behaviour.
‘At auditions or photoshoots, men would tell me to take my clothes off. I always refused.’
Her experience with menopause was difficult as she became older. ‘It’s a big psychological moment for all women, because we’re always told that our worth is based on an ability to have children, then suddenly that is gone, it’s a tool no longer in our toolbox.
‘Some women don’t really have anything else to fall back on. I had a moment of ‘‘Oh my God, this is happening to me’’. It lasted for an hour or so, then I got over it.’
Despite being ‘as horny as hell when I was 18’ she doesn’t miss the sex, not at the moment anyway.
‘Oh God, I don’t really want to talk about my sex life. I honestly don’t. Once you get over a certain age, people don’t want to hear specifics. Anyway, right now I feel like I don’t really have time to pursue a big sexual relationship.
‘I don’t want to be with some twentysomething guy just for sex. I’m too old to have sex just for sex, and that was never me anyway.
‘If I have sex it’s got to be a cool thing. There’s got to be conversation, he’s got to be interesting, there has to be a continued form of communication. It’s what I seek. It is my goal to enjoy the most sex.
‘But then there is the possibility of emotional disappointment. You know, if I had sex tomorrow with someone and they didn’t call me the next day, I’m probably still going to feel be a little upset. And that is not a good look when you’re 62 going on 63,’ she says, and roars with laughter.
Candace really is a card. You might think that Sex And The City has changed her life and made her fabulously rich, but it hasn’t, not really.
It is not far from her tiny apartment where she lived when she wrote those columns many years ago, but she still lives in New York in an apartment. Yes, she says, she bought the house in the Hamptons but one that was ‘on the market for two years because nobody wanted it’.
But she’s not in poverty. She still drinks cosmopolitans, and still loves shoes.
‘Last week I bought a new pair of Manolos. They were about $900, I believe. They are still a costume. I need them for the show.’
What number of new pairs have she purchased? ‘Only four,’ she says unabashed.
Candace Bushnell was born almost 30 years ago. She charmed millions of women around the world with her adventurous adventures and independent spirit. Her unshakeable conviction that good shoes bring good luck made her a popular figure. Sometimes she wonders what all of the boys-crazy fuss is about. Although her life is not a fairytale, the absence of Prince Charming has made it clear that she has no faith in shoes.
‘If you believe they will bring you luck, then they will,’ she says, wiggling her own Manolos. ‘All you have to remember is that this is not a Cinderella story. It’s the exact opposite of Cinderella. It is not sitting at home waiting for life to happen, saying ‘‘Oh, I lost my shoe and somebody needs to find me’’.
‘It is about putting on your shoes and going out there and finding that life for yourself.’