As Aidan Shaw on “Sex and the City,” John Corbett proved to be a dreamy, if ultimately ill-fated, match for Sarah Jessica Parker’s Carrie Bradshaw.
Off-screen, the actor almost found love with author Candace Bushnell, whose New York Observer columns were the basis for the long-running HBO series.
Bushnell revealed on the Aug. 20 episode of the “Bradshaw Boys” podcast that she and Corbett once went on a date. She didn’t clarify the exact timing of the intimate outing but confirmed that it happened before Corbett coupled up with fellow actor Bo Derek, with whom he’s been in a relationship since 2002.
“I did go to dinner with John Corbett,” she said. “I kind of went out to dinner with him. It was romantic, [but] all I could think was, ‘My mother’s gonna kill me!’”
“Then he goes back to L.A., and then, like, two days later, it’s, like, ‘Oh, he’s dating Bo Derek,’” she added. “You cannot compete with Bo Derek. Forget it.”
Turns out much of Bushnell’s apprehension around the idea of dating Corbett stemmed from his portrayal of Aidan, a rugged furniture designer who is briefly engaged to Carrie in season four of “Sex and the City.”
“I’m never gonna be Team Aidan for Carrie,” she said. “I can’t for a variety of reasons, but one of the reasons is that my mother hated Aidan. She would watch, and she was, like, ‘I hate that Aidan. He’s too wrong for her!’”
Bushnell also said she was briefly considered for the role of Mr. Big’s wife, Natasha, which eventually went to Bridget Moynahan.
“They had an actress. She couldn’t do it,” recalled the author, whose most recent book, “Is There Still Sex in the City?,” was released last year. Series creator Darren Star “was, like, ‘Come down here, and play Natasha.’ I was, like, ‘I’m busy. I cannot come to the set,’” Bushnell added.
As for Parker, she pleaded the Fifth when asked about her preferences for her on-screen counterpart’s love life earlier this year.
“As you can imagine, this puts me in a terrible position,” she told the “Bradshaw Boys” in January. “There is a very quick and simple answer. You have to be Team Big or Team John [Mr. Big’s real name, as revealed in the series finale]. ... I love Chris Noth so much, and it felt wonderfully and skillfully written by Michael Patrick [King].”
She acknowledged Carrie “should have ended up with Big,” but she stressed that she “loved” both Corbett and his character.
“I loved his Aidan,” she said. “The best of both worlds is in fact having your cake and eating it, too. So I feel like I got both teams.”
Listen to the full “Bradshaw Boys” interview with Candace Bushnell below.