Will Samantha ever return to Sex and the City?

Have we really seen the last of Kim Cattrall's iconic character?

With the imminent arrival of And Just Like That, many Sex and the City fans are reliving memories from the hugely popular sitcom. From the peculiar narrative of the very first episode to some of Carrie's most stylish outfits, there's a lot to unpack before the SATC gals hit our screens for one last time. However, notably absent form the cast-list of And Just Like That is Kim Cattrall, who played the iconic Samantha Jones for six seasons and two films. The actress said in 2019, that she has simply "had enough" of the franchise, and no longer wishes to be a part of it. The creators of And Just Like That have said that the door is open for the return of Cattrall, and indeed Samantha, should she change her mind before season two. But whether or not she'll take them up on that offer is a completely different story, and that's largely due to her very public feud with Sarah Jessica Parker, which, in recent years, has been aired more publicly than ever before. In 2018, after the tragic loss of her brother, Parker sent Cattrall her condolences, but the latter took to Instagram to make her feelings very clear. She wrote: "Your continuous reaching out is a painful reminder of how cruel you really were then and now. Let me make this VERY clear. (If I haven’t already) You are not my family. You are not my friend. So I’m writing to tell you one last time to stop exploiting our tragedy in order to restore your ‘nice girl’ persona." The divide between the two has a long history. According to the New York Post, the pair drifted after Samantha became a firm fan favourite in the earlier seasons. In 2018, the show's producer Michael Patrick King confirmed that the two actresses had fallen out. He said: "As the show progressed, the characters, everybody grew, it became a family. Kristin, Cynthia, and Sarah Jessica became one group, and Kim never joined mentally." Additionally, Cattrall was reportedly opposed to the pay discrepancies between her and Parker. According to Vox, she initially refused to be part of the film until she received a bigger pay package. Apparently, she felt that as her character was as popular as the protagonist, her pay should reflect that. In the end, Parker was paid $15 million while Cattrall earned $7 million. Cattrall had similar reservations before appearing in the second film. Once again, with a paycheque of €20 million, Parker earned significantly more money than her co-star, who took home €10 million for her performance. For her part, Parker has said that rumours of a fight are "fabricated". In 2018, she told People: "There was no fight; it was completely fabricated, because I actually never responded. And I won’t, because she needed to say what she needed to say, and that is her privilege." While only one side has spoken about the alleged fights on set, Cattrall's calling out of Parker publicly would make her return to And Just Like That somewhat unlikely. On top of that, many viewers feel like Samantha as a character was treated poorly over the seasons. Throughout the show, Samantha was subject to slut-shaming from her friends, and, in the first film, she was cruelly body-shamed for gaining a tiny amount of weight. Earlier reports that Samantha was killed off in And Just Like That have been thoroughly debunked, so the door for her return remains, theoretically, open. However, the past few years have seen Cattrall become increasingly vocal about her discontent with both the franchise and her former co-star, so it seems unlikely that Samantha Jones will be on our screens any time soon.