HBO/Courtesy Everett Collection

Body image and public scrutiny followed Kristin Davis long after Sex and the City wrapped, and in a recent conversation she opened up about just how far the pressure pushed her. The actress, now 61, revealed that she once dieted to the point of visible ribs while filming the show — only to be told by viewers that she looked heavier on screen.

Sex and the City

Kristin Davis remembers dieting until her ribs were visible while filming Sex and the City, then hearing from fans that the camera made her look heavier. On her podcast Are You a Charlotte?, she said those comments kept coming for years.

She was talking with Evan Handler, who played her character’s husband, about the scrutiny they both endured. Handler, 65, recalled people approaching him in New York City and saying, “You look so much fatter on the show.”

Kristin Davis at a Paris photocall for the “And Just Like That…” preview event held at the Lido theatre on May 28, 2025. Photo by Hugo Mathy / AFP via Getty Images.

“They would say it to me as well,” Davis told him. “Evan, for years and years, this is all they would say to me.”

She described an early stretch of filming during a hot summer when she severely restricted what she ate. “I just ate M&Ms like for a couple weeks,” she recalled, clarifying, “What I mean is that I wasn’t eating any real food.”

At Le Lido in Paris on May 28, 2025, the Season 3 premiere of “And Just Like That…” brought together Cynthia Nixon, Kristin Davis, Sarah Jessica Parker, Sarita Choudhury, and Nicole Ari Parker. Photo by Kristy Sparow / Getty Images.

Davis said she’d read about ballet dancers living on cigarettes and candy bars and used that as a rationale for her own eating, though she wasn’t smoking. When an acupuncturist told her to stop eating the candy, she recalled replying, “Why not? It’s all I eat.” She acknowledged that the diet wasn’t healthy.

She also remembered feeling that costume designer Patricia Field was frustrated with her curves when the series began, during a period when fashion favored straighter silhouettes. “I’ve never been straight, nothing, no amount of dieting,” Davis said.

Sex and the City

Handler joined the series in 2002 as Charlotte’s divorce lawyer, Harry Goldenblatt, who later became her second husband. Davis told him she thought she’d been feeling better about her body by the time he arrived, although she was still dieting.

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