The Emily in Paris and Sex and the City Connection, Explained

Summary

• Emily in Paris
  and
  Sex and the City
  are not officially connected according to “canon,” but they share similarities in fashion-forward protagonists and romantic storylines.
• Both shows romanticize their locations (Paris and NYC) while depicting unique ways the main characters connect with their audiences.
• There is crossover potential for Samantha Jones from
  Sex and the City
  to cameo in
  Emily in Paris
  , although it would be challenging to pull off.

Emily in Paris is a fun romantic comedy-drama on Netflix that stars Lily Collins as the title character, an aspiring marketer who moves to Paris on assignment. While she is initially met with culture shock and a team who is not entirely happy to see an American try to market to their customers, she eventually proves her business-savvy. She can connect with a younger generation in ways they don’t understand, and that transcends cultural boundaries.

The series was created by Darren Star, a veteran in the business who is known for creating iconic shows like Beverly Hills, 90210, Melrose Place, and Younger. He is also the man behind Sex and the City and its sequel spin-off And Just Like That…This has fans wondering if the two shows are connected in any way.

Is Emily in Paris Connected to Sex and the City?

While Emily in Paris and Sex and the City have the same lighthearted feel while tackling similar topics, the two shows aren’t connected in any way. But they do share some similarities that are tough to ignore. Both follow a fashionable, independent woman weaving her way through her career and love life. Though the protagonists’ ages are different, with Emily being in her 20s and Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) being in her 30s when Sex and the City began, they are similar in many ways.

Both have unique strategies for connecting to their professional audiences. With Emily, it’s with clients and customers looking to buy into everything from make-up and creams to fragrances and champagne. Her specific talents lie in social media and building campaigns that go viral. With Carrie, it’s her readers who turn to her for dating advice in the Big Apple. She uses a traditional laptop and print or online media to compose inspiring and relatable prose in a popular weekly column. Both have made names for themselves in their respective industries.

While Emily is initially a fish out of water, she finds an equally fashion-forward best friend in Mindy (Ashley Park), a young woman who also moved to Paris. Emily also befriends Camille (Camille Razat), though the pair have a tumultuous relationship since they are both interested in the same man.

By contrast, Carrie has her close-knit group of friends with Charlotte (Kristin Davis), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), and Samantha (Kim Cattrall), making them a fearsome foursome. They share all their tales from work, dating, sex, and drama. There were never love triangles between these ladies: they all had different tastes and interests in men and relationships.

Carrie, however, was involved in many love triangles with men just like Emily. Most notably is Aiden (John Corbett) and Mr. Big/John (Chris Noth), a similar story to Emily’s love triangle with Gabriel (Lucas Bravo) and Alfie (Lucien Laviscount). Like Carrie, Emily often finds herself meeting romantic prospects everywhere she goes and juggling between wanting to find love and being on her own for a while. The latter, however, usually never lasts for both ladies.

The settings are completely different, but both shows heavily romanticize their locations. Sex and the City made New York City a place that women dreamed of visiting to dress in outlandish fashion and have brunch on a patio with their girlfriends, complete with Cosmopolitans in hand. The hustle and bustle of the city, filled with socialites, loud, obnoxious residents, and the impossibility of hailing a cab, are all presented as aspects that make the Big Apple wonderful. The show captures the unique charm of New York City that residents and visitors alike appreciate (and even sometimes loathe).

Emily in Paris does the same for Paris. While the show has been criticized for depicting stereotypical Parisian tropes, the concept hinges on the fact that Emily finds everything about Paris so irresistible that she decides to stay. Handsome French men, pastries galore, a slightly less frantic scene, and incredible fashion and culture draw viewers to the show in the same way they were to Sex and the City.

The Crossover Potential Between Emily in Paris and Sex and the City

The one big crossover potential between these two shows is the fact that Samantha, who works in public relations, works in a similar field. It would stand to reason that in her position, Samantha could potentially work with many of the same European clients and marketing companies that Agence Grateau does. The client, marketer, and publicist relationship is typically a very tight-woven one, and it would be plausible to consider that she and Sylvie (Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu) may have crossed paths.

Since Samantha moved to London to work as a publicist there, which explained her absence from the sequel series And Just Like That…, she’s a hop, skip, and a jump from Paris. It would make sense that Samantha might travel there with clients. This has some fans speculating that she could have a cameo in Emily in Paris.

Fueling rumors is that Cattrall appeared at the Season 3 premiere event for the show. Star told Glamour that he isn’t a “big believer in just stunt casting for the purpose of stunt casting. But he was ambiguous in his reply, noting that a cameo could happen if it were “a role that feels like it’s the right thing for her to do.” He also commented that Cattrall would “bring some great energy into the series.”

For her part, Cattrall told ET Online back in May 2023 that “we’ll see what happens.” At the time, she was working on her new movie, About My Father, as well as the series Glamorous. The latter, however, was canceled in November 2023 after its first season, opening a slot in Cattrall’s calendar to possibly make an appearance.

While Cattrall did not appear in the first five episodes of Season 4 of Emily in Paris, which were released in mid-August 2024, much to the fan disappointment, there are still five more episodes to come on September 12, 2024. With that said, Star told The Hollywood Reporter in August following the Season 4 premiere that he isn’t sure an appearance from Samantha Jones can actually happen.

“I’m a huge fan of hers,” he said, “and I would love to find a wonderful way for her to be on the show.” He added that as a “terrific actress,” she can “step into a lot of different roles.” When pressed, he added that he wished it could happen and told the interviewer to “call HBO for me,” implying it might have something to do with rights to the character. The New York Times reported back in January 2024 that HBO was licensing Sex and the City to Netflix for the streamer to offer the show to its subscribers. However, this may not include permission to use characters in Netflix’s own original series.

Thus, if nothing else, fans can be hopeful that Cattrall might appear in a guest starring role on the show in some way. Even if she does, however, it might not be as Samantha Jones. She could be a friend or rival of Sylvie’s or perhaps someone Agence Grateau works with in a PR capacity. Either way, this removes the potential for a direct connection to Sex and the City. Nonetheless, there’s no denying that Cattrall would nail any role given to her on this show and would fit in like a glove.

What Fans Say About a Connection Between the Shows

Despite Emily in Paris and Sex and the City having very different characters and storylines, the beautiful, cutting-edge fashion, focus on love lives, love triangles, and Star’s signature style when it comes to tone, pacing, dialogue, and character archetypes have fans drawing comparisons. “The love interests, the fashion, the romanticization of a city” are cited as similar elements by Redditor takemetothelostcity, but they admit that the two shows are “completely different otherwise.” They also add that the fan base is not the same. Those who watched Sex and the City were older, mature women looking for “a much realer representation of women’s thoughts, struggles, and friendship.”

Emily in Paris, they feel, is much more comparable to the short-lived prequel series The Carrie Diaries about Carrie’s early life in New York as she worked to get her career off the ground. TDollasign562 adds that while “Sex and the City can have its whimsical, unrealistic or humorous moments, Emily in Paris is all three of those, all of the time.”

One interesting take comes from Redditor creepycrawley182, who describes Emily in Paris as what might be written by Carrie Bradshaw if she were to branch out into writing YA fiction. “The plot, the outfits, the absurd cherry-picking of French culture…It’s giving Carrie Bradshaw’s young adult fiction series…if she were to write one.” Bottom line: Emily in Paris is “turn-the-brain-off” lighthearted fun that isn’t designed to be taken seriously. Sex and the City was a more mature show, designed to offer one part realistic, one part aspirational portrayal of an older, single woman navigating a big city. Beyond the fashion, romantic encounters, and friendship, however, the two shows couldn’t be more different from one another.

With that said, they both have the signature Darren Star stamp on them, easily identified as one of his shows by the first episode. Liking one will not guarantee liking the other. But they both hold a place in the TV landscape. Each show offers its own spin on escapist TV that will get fans talking and shopping. Stream Emily in Paris on Netflix and Sex and the City on Max.