Bushnell’s prim upbringing
Candace Bushnell had a strict upbringing, but she cut loose once she left for college in Texas.
Candace Bushnell used to be quite the party girl, says Andrew Goldman in Elle. But the author of Sex and the City didn’t start out that way. Raised in straight-laced Glastonbury, Conn., she wasn’t allowed to date in high school. At home, discipline was strict. “Where I came from, you’d get your mouth washed out with soap. You always got hit with the belt. All the mothers would say, ‘Wait until your father comes home.’ And the fathers drank! It was like hell.” But once Bushnell left for college in Texas she cut loose, throwing parties and taking up with film director Gordon Parks, who was more than 40 years her senior. “When I was that age, no one could tell me what to do.” Bushnell’s active social life continued in Manhattan. “I’d be doing my own thing. I would stay out until 4, socializing, going to clubs.” But although, as she puts it, “I never felt like I lacked for male companionship,” potential mates were wary of her freewheeling ways. “I guess, in a way, I lived my life like a man.” Today, at 49, Bushnell has come full circle. Happily married for six years to dancer Charles Askegard, she’s generally in bed by 11. “It was a natural evolution.”
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Why are student loan borrowers falling behind on payments?
Today's Big Question Delinquencies surge as the Trump administration upends the program
By Joel Mathis, The Week US Published
-
Not there yet: The frustrations of the pocket AI
Feature Apple rushes to roll out its ‘Apple Intelligence’ features but fails to deliver on promises
By The Week US Published
-
George Foreman: The boxing champ who reinvented home grills
Feature He helped define boxing’s golden era
By The Week US Published