Candace Bushnell Net Worth, Relationships, Age/Birthdate & Birthday

Candace Bushnell — The Story Behind the Words, the Wealth, and the Life Lived Out Loud

The Spark That Ignited a Cultural Phenomenon

Candace Bushnell was born on December 1, 1958 in Glastonbury, Connecticut. From a childhood filled with creativity — plays with neighborhood kids, marionettes, baking elaborate cakes, and nights at the town library — Bushnell grew into a storyteller with an appetite for exploring modern romance, ambition, and female identity.

After high school, she moved to New York City at 19, driven by the city's pulse and ready to write. She enrolled first at Rice University and later at New York University. Early attempts included a children's story sold to a publisher and freelance work for magazines — but the breakthrough came when she began writing a column for The New York Observer.

That humorous, candid column — charting single life, romance, desire, friendship and ambition in Manhattan — was christened with a name that would define a generation: Sex and the City. Its observations on relationships and modern urban life struck a chord, and in 1996 the columns were compiled into a book.

From Page to Screen: Reinventing The Modern Woman

What began as witty essays became the foundation of a media juggernaut. The book’s success landed it at the heart of the now-iconic television adaptation on HBO. The TV show aired between 1998 and 2004, ignited cultural conversations about sex, friendship, and female empowerment — and made Bushnell and her creation household names.

Far from being a one-hit wonder, Bushnell went on to write a string of bestselling novels: 4 Blondes, Trading Up, Lipstick Jungle, One Fifth Avenue, The Carrie Diaries, Summer and the City, and more. Some of these — like Lipstick Jungle and The Carrie Diaries — themselves became television shows, further expanding Bushnell’s reach and influence.

In recent years she has even reinvented herself on stage: her one-woman show, True Tales of Sex, Success and Sex and the City, has toured internationally and earned critical acclaim.

The Numbers Behind the Name — What Her Net Worth Says (and Doesn’t)

What is Candace Bushnell’s net worth? That is a source of debate. According to one prominent tracker, she is worth around US$2.5 million. But other publications offer wildly different estimates: some claim her net worth stands closer to US$40 million to US$50 million, reflecting the long-term cultural value of her work.

That discrepancy isn’t accidental. Bushnell herself has acknowledged that despite the global success of Sex and the City, her personal earnings from the franchise were modest. As she reportedly revealed, she sold the TV and film rights to her work for a relatively small sum — meaning that much of her wealth comes instead from book sales, later novels, and other projects, rather than residuals from the show.

In a sense, the conflicting numbers mirror a larger truth: monetary net worth is only part of the story. The real wealth lies in the legacy she carved — influencing culture, reshaping how women’s lives are depicted, and giving future generations of writers and creators permission to be bold.

Love, Loss and Living Life On Her Own Terms

When it comes to relationships and personal life, Bushnell has never shied away from honesty. On July 4, 2002, she married ballet dancer Charles Askegard — a man ten years her junior. The union was whirlwind: they met, dated for only eight weeks, and married soon after.

That decade-long marriage ended in divorce by 2012. In later interviews, Bushnell spoke candidly about the experience: how divorce radically shifted her sense of identity, stability, even her relationship to society’s expectations around coupledom. “I walked around feeling like I was full of broken glass,” she said.

She never wanted children — a decision she made early in life and never regretted. Instead, she embraced freedom: love on her own terms, creative pursuit, independence. In a remarkable anecdote she once said she dated both a 21-year-old and a 91-year-old in the same week — a testament to her refusal to be boxed in by convention.

She has sometimes been referred to as the “real-life Carrie Bradshaw,” a label she accepted with humor — despite asserting that her personal life doesn’t exactly replicate her character’s journey.

Reinvention and Resilience: Why Bushnell Still Matters

Today, Candace Bushnell remains a working writer and performer. Her one-woman show continues to draw audiences, offering a candid and often razor-sharp look at life, sex, aging, ambition, and reinvention.

Her story is not just about a column turned global phenomenon — it’s about resilience. It’s about a woman unafraid to chronicle the messy, glamorous, sometimes painful reality of relationships. It’s about choosing independence over expectation, creativity over conformity, and truth over fantasy.

For readers, writers, and anyone chasing their own vision, Bushnell’s journey is inspiring — a reminder that success doesn’t always follow the path we imagine, but can still define us on our own terms.