Sex & The City Creator Reveals The IRL Story Behind This Charlotte Storyline

Summer is right around the corner, but the Sex and the City Season 2 episode, “Twenty-Something Girls vs. Thirty-Something Women,” probably isn’t the best inspo for your vacation mood board.

The 1999 episode follows Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha to the Hamptons for a balmy August getaway. And, well, it’s a rough time, from their “sh*tty chic” cottage (as Samantha puts it) to Carrie coming face to face with Mr. Big’s new girlfriend, Natasha. But perhaps the most memorable part of the episode is the uninvited guests that tag along for the ride: Charlotte’s crabs, or pubic lice.

Girls Trip Gone Awry

Charlotte seems to contract the tiny, itchy insects from her beach fling, Greg, who’s 26 — and thinks Charlotte is 27.

As it turns out, original Sex and the City columnist Candace Bushnell has some experience with the episode’s most cringe-inducing details.

During an April 23 appearance on Kristin Davis’ podcast, Are You a Charlotte?, Bushnell opened up about finding ideas for the writing that would go on to inspire the hit HBO series. “I went out pretty much every single night with my notebook,” she said, adding that she would sometimes scurry off to the bathroom to write down key observations and stories about the people she encountered.

For example, Bushnell shared that the episode was inspired by a story she’d been told.

Itchy Inspiration

“When Charlotte pretends to be 27 or whatever, and then I get crabs? Crazy storyline,” Davis said. “That was real?”

Bushnell said yes and then clarified that she didn’t mean the crabs story came from real life, but the bit about her lying about her age. But after a beat, she revealed her firsthand understanding of Charlotte’s plight. She once got crabs from sharing an apartment with her roommate.

“They go on the towel! Nobody tells you that,” Bushnell said.

It seems that Bushnell — who worked in the writers’ room for the show’s first two years — might have done her part to show Sex and the City viewers that crabs don’t only come from sex, but from sharing everyday linens, too. In the episode, Charlotte strips her bed after finding out she has crabs. “Well, there go our sh*tty sheets,” Samantha says as they fall from the second story.

“I have this thing about crabs,” Carrie tells her date later. “I had them once in college, and the experience scarred me for life. I don’t think I can go back into that house until the mattresses are sanitized, and the sheets and towels are burned.”