“What else didn’t I know?”
Many of us have asked this question about Chris Noth over the past few weeks. But it’s also a question Carrie Bradshaw asked in episode 3 of HBO Max’s And Just Like That, in reference to something she just learned about her late husband, John James Preston, who we know better as Mr. Big (played by Noth). At the reading of his will, she learned that Big left $1 million to his ex-wife, Natasha — the woman Big cheated on with Carrie. She feels betrayed, shocked, and confused by this piece of information.
Carrie’s question, and the subsequent rollercoaster emotions, felt oddly on-point. Days before that episode dropped, much of the world learned of Noth’s alleged sexually predatory behavior. But before that, we were all mourning the death of this character beloved by so many.
“It was certainly a media rollercoaster that week,” says Sex and the City and Us author Jennifer Armstrong. “Especially with all of the brouhaha over Peloton, and the quick ad they put out in response [Big died of a heart attack after a Peloton ride]. That was all media-driven fun, and then this news is just such a dose of sad reality.”
There’s another prescient question written into the reboot’s script: “Am I the only one who remembers what a prick he was to her?”
This was asked during his funeral in episode 2 by an old friend of Carrie’s, Susan Sharon.
If you put those two questions together, they paint an enlightening picture of what’s currently happening with the man behind Big.
Shortly after the first two episodes of Sex and the City‘s revival And Just Like That dropped, The Hollywood Reporter published the accounts of two anonymous women who accused Noth of sexual assault in incidents alleged to have happened in 2004 and 2015. Noth denied the allegations.
Since then, three more women have come forward with sexual assault or misconduct allegations against Noth. (Before Noth became Mr. Big, the first allegations against him reportedly came in 1995 from model Beverly Johnson.)
In a wildly profound yet backward way, in the first episode of the reboot, Big died. We saw Carrie’s heart crumble as she cradled him until his last breath. This came as a shock to viewers and was heartbreaking to most fans, even those on Team Aidan. People were attacking Peloton — their stock plunged right after the episode aired, proof that the world was rejecting Big’s death. (Peloton clapped back with a funny commercial featuring Big, which has since been pulled.) And then there were the endless “why didn’t she call 911?!” tweets in response to Carrie crying over her dying husband instead of reaching for the phone. (Katie was so disturbed by this scene that she spoke to a cardiologist about what you should do in that situation.)
It was a tough pill to swallow in the first episode of our reunion with these beloved characters after so many years. It didn’t matter that he was a fictional character; this fairytale couple who overcame marriages and engagements to other people, who endured through moves across the country and world, and who continually found their way back together through “romantic” grand gestures, was destroyed. People loved what Carrie and Big seemed to represent, and they were grieving the loss of this character and this relationship when this bombshell hit.
And, now, suddenly, we’re no longer mourning his death. (In fact, many are grateful for its timing.) While Carrie kept saying at least they were happy when he died, once she found out about the will, she proclaimed that he ruined their happy ending. Fans were feeling similarly betrayed.
What was once an onslaught of tweets attacking an exercise bike and questioning why Carrie didn’t call an ambulance ASAP (let’s not forget, she refused to carry a cellphone in the original series) became pretty funny ones thanking Peloton and Carrie.
Of course, Big dying isn’t a punishment for Noth’s behavior. But we can’t help but wonder what Big’s death means now that we know more about who the actor really was.
Maybe it means nothing, because Big wasn’t a real person. But Big might have been a lot like Noth.
As Susan Sharon said, Big DID treat Carrie like crap. He played so many games with her early on in their relationship and strung her along when they weren’t together, leading her into an affair while he was married to Natasha and Carrie was with Aidan. He encouraged her not to quit smoking. He broke up with her when he was supposed to move to Paris for work, and when he didn’t end up moving, he didn’t even tell her — instead he started dating someone else. And…hello! He left her at the altar!
Candace Bushnell, author of the book the show was based on, revealed in 2004, “I called him Mr. Big because he was like a big man on campus.” When he was introduced on the show, Samantha described him as “the next Donald Trump, except he’s younger and much better looking” and said he usually dated models.
In the late ‘90s and early 2000s, many fans saw Big’s behavior as sexy and his push-and-pull relationship with Carrie as romantic. But now? Not so much.
“In pop culture, in our rom-coms, the men behave in these ways that are seriously questionable. But in the context of the movie, because it’s contextualized as these people are meant to be together, we believe that it’s romantic,” says Cynthia Vinney, Ph.D., author of Finding Truth in Fiction: What Fan Culture Gets Right—and Why It’s Good to Get Lost in a Story.
“I think that Carrie wanted Big so badly — and she’s the fulcrum of the show, she’s the one whose eyes we see through — that we wanted that for her despite his behavior,” Dr. Vinney points out. “And I think that, unfortunately, especially when you’re a young woman and you don’t really know how to navigate the ins and outs of relationships, you’re often willing to accept less than you deserve just because you feel like, ‘Well, that’s the way men are.’ Women are taught that men will behave certain ways and we just accept that. I think that’s changing, but I think, especially at this time, that was really common.”
Back then, we shipped them (unless you were Team Aidan). “The hope that Carrie could eventually land this guy might have actually given a lot of women hope that if a guy is treating them badly, it just means he loves them but doesn’t know how to deal with it,” Dr. Vinney says.
“I have never been a fan of Carrie ending up with Big. In real life, Bigs don’t suddenly change, come to Paris to declare their love, and marry you,” argues Armstrong. “I thought it was a false idea after they’d done such a good job of portraying this toxic relationship throughout the series.”
The women who’ve spoken out against Noth say he exhibited some of Big’s behaviors in real life.
One of the accusers claims Noth “totally violated” her in NYC in 2015, three years after he married Tara Wilson. “He said marriage is a sham. Monogamy is not real.” Sounds like something Big might have said. “All of my dreams with this star I loved for years were gone,” she said.
Zoe-Lister Jones, an actress who worked with Noth on Law & Order in 2005, revealed her own traumatic experience with the actor. “Last week my friend asked me how I felt about Mr. Big’s death and I said honestly I felt relieved,” Lister-Jones wrote on social media. “He asked why and I told him I couldn’t separate the actor from the man and the man is a sexual predator.”
She recalled the uncomfortable interactions she had with him at a bar and on the set of Law & Order. “Chris Noth capitalized on the fantasy women believed Mr. Big represented. And those fantasies often create environments where emotional confusion thrives.” Some of his accusers said they initially experienced mixed emotions when Noth came onto them, including excitement that the man who played Mr. Big was interested in them.
So, will this news help people accept Big’s death? Probably.
It might even change how they feel about the show. “It’s hard to imagine it not affecting people’s feelings at all. I don’t know if it will stop them from watching the show, since it’s not all Big, but it’s hard not to feel a little icky about him,” says Armstrong.
But it could affect how many people watch the old seasons. “He was such a central part of the show that I would imagine there’s a big percentage of the audience who just can’t handle the message of the show anymore,” says Vinney.
Big’s death gives Noth and the entertainment industry an out, Dr. Vinney believes. “It lets the show off the hook, and it makes it so that we don’t really have to reassess that character either.”
She adds, “if he was still on the show, I think there would be a percentage of the fandom who just couldn’t deal with seeing him on a weekly basis. Now they don’t have to worry about it.”
If he hadn’t been killed off, HBO would have to make a major decision. Do they get rid of a character people love, who is integral to Carrie’s life and story? Or do they keep an alleged sexual predator employed? HBO firing Noth from the series would have made a big statement. He’s since been fired from his other show, The Equalizer, but being stripped of an iconic role that created his career would have had a much stronger impact.
“I’m sure the people at the show are relieved. But, from the perspective of the Me Too movement, it doesn’t move the needle the same way it would if he was still on the show,” Dr. Vinney says.
Big stans might not even believe the news about Noth. “I think that there’s probably a sect of the fandom that quite possibly is not believing any of it. It’s the cognitive dissonance of, ‘Oh no, this is this romantic guy that I’ve thought about for decades now as the idealized man.’ They may not be able to let go of that,” says Dr. Vinney. She believes that the fact that those fans won’t have to face Big on a regular basis will make it easier to brush off these allegations.
At the very least, this horrific information will make it easier for fans to move on from Big and get on board with whatever romantic encounters Carrie has in her future (this Carrie and Aidan shipper is excited by the possibilities Big’s death allows — in addition to not having to look at Noth’s face). If we’re lucky, it will help Hollywood continue to redefine what makes an admirable, attractive man. Hopefully, writers fill the hole Big left behind with a more respectful depiction of a love interest.
As Lister-Jones put it, “Perhaps Big’s death is the communal grief we must all face in mourning that fantasy, in releasing that male archetype we as women have been fed through popular culture, and confronting its dark and pervasive underbelly.”
