Actress Sarah Jessica Parker is perhaps best known for her role as Carrie Bradshaw on the hit show Sex and the City. The actress plays a journalist on the series and in real life, perhaps the actress is just as talented as a writer!
On the occasion of her 26th anniversary with actor Matthew Broderick, she took to Instagram to pen a sweet message for her husband.Sarah Jessica Parker tied to knot with Matthew Broderick on May 19, 1997. The couple has since then remained in marital bliss. And unlike a lot of Hollywood couples that call it quits just a few years or even months into their marriage, they have made it over 25 years in love!
Before she started dating Matthew Broderick, Sarah Jessica Parker was in a high-profile relationship with actor Robert Downey Jr. The couple dated for seven years before calling it quits in 1991.
“I liked to drink, and I had a drug problem, and that didn’t jibe with Sarah Jessica, because it is the furthest thing from what she is,” Downey remembered of the time. “She provided me a home and understanding. She tried to help me. She was so miffed when I didn’t get my act together… I was in love with Sarah Jessica, and love clearly was not enough.”
It was around the same time in the early 90s that Parker’s brothers Toby and Pippin started a Broadway theater company together called ‘Naked Angels.’ Broderick became involved in the company which is how he met Parker who, a fellow Broadway enthusiast got her big break by playing “Annie” as a teenager.
“Matthew and I come from a different time and place. When we were young people, all we ever wanted was to be good working actors. We didn’t think of fame or money because, honestly, money was never part of the dream,” Parker said in a 2013 interview. “It was to work in theater, to be around those people whose work I was in total awe of.”
In 1992, months after the two of them met, Broderick finally asked Parker out on a date. “He left a very charming, very self-effacing message on the machine,” Parker told recalled in a 1996 interview. “You know, ‘Hi, it’s Matthew Broderick.’ You had to use your last name.”
The couple went out to a movie. “I do remember first meeting her,” Broderick said in 2012. He continued, “[…] And I still remember very clearly seeing her walk down the street toward the movie theater … it’s very unique, because I wouldn’t remember most people the first time I saw them come down the street. [But] I remember it as clear as day.”
In an interview just last year, Parker revealed how she knew early on that she wanted to marry Broderick.
“I think I learned early on when I was talking too much. I was like, ‘I’m in love. When’s he going to marry me?’ Oh my God, I’m so sorry about that,” she told Broderick. “I’m still apologizing for that.”
In 1997, they surprised their 100 wedding guests. While attendees were under the impression they were going to a normal party, they were actually attending the couples’ nuptials at the Lower East Side synagogue.
Parker subverted tradition in another way; by wearing a black wedding dress.
“I never thought about a wedding dress. Never. Had not one daydream about it,” said in a 2018 interview to People. “At one point I just simply remember thinking, ‘God, I really hope he asks me to marry him.’ I don’t know when or why. It was fairly early on.”
According to reports, it was Broderick who encouraged Parker to accept the role as Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City. When a few years into the role Parker accepted her second Golden Globe she said in her speech,”the courage to let me work with the likes of Chris Noth and John Slattery and John Corbett.”
Broderick was also offered multiple opportunities to appear on the show alongside his wife but he rejected them all.
In 2002, after five years of marriage the couple welcomed their first child together; their son James Wilkie Broderick.“If I could revisit one moment in my life, it would be the birth of my children, definitely,” Parker said in 2016. “It’s just you and, in my case, my husband, and this child, and it’s absolute euphoria.
Then in the summer of 2009, they welcomed their daughters Tabitha Hodge Broderick and Marion Loretta Elwell Broderick via surrogacy.
“We tried and tried and tried and tried to get pregnant,” Parker revealed in 2010, “but it just was not to be, the conventional way. I would give birth as often as I could, if I could. I cherished all the milestones, the good and the bad.”
The couple kept the birth of their twins and the events preceding it largely under wraps. “You can’t talk about how you feel about the woman who’s carrying your children; you can only talk about it to your husband,” the award-winning actress added.
The couple has three children together and tend to live very down-to-earth lives, often doing most tasks themselves. “We painted our patio furniture ourselves … I make my children’s food myself,” Parker revealed in a 2010 interview. “We put together their high chairs ourselves; we do a lot ourselves! We do our own grocery shopping, we go to the market ourselves, you know? I do my laundry.”
Now, the couple is celebrating their 26th wedding anniversary together. The actress took to Instagram to celebrate the major milestone in their life. She posted a picture of a champagne cork and in the caption wrote, “Happy 26th anniversary my husband. That sure was a nice celebration and a real nice bottle of champagne,” Parker wrote. “And a gorgeous walk home. Oh the miles we have strolled together. I love you. XOX, your SJ.”
What a sweet sentiment to share for your husband and marriage. The couple really does care about one another it seems and celebrate their milestones with champagne and making solid memories.
While the couple does not prefer to talk about their marriage in the papers, Broderick opened up about how to keep a marriage happy in 2016. He said, “Listen to her. You know, that helps,” Adding, “Give her a little present every now and then. Just be kind to her.”