A Look At Kim Cattrall's Three Failed Marriages
Just like Samantha Jones had trouble finding a balanced, fulfilling relationship on "Sex and the City," so too has Kim Cattrall struggled with settling down in a way that works for her. The Canadian actor has been married and divorced three times, but it seems she's finally met her perfect match. While her career may be slowing down – Hollywood hasn't been casting her much, and she wants nothing to do with "Sex and the City" anymore – her personal life is flourishing.
Speaking to People about her latest romance, Cattrall revealed she met her new beau, Russell Thomas, back in 2016 at his place of work: The BBC. "We kind of liked each other, we kept in touch, and then he came out to Vancouver," she shared. "We got along great, and we've been together ever since!" Praising his good looks and sense of humor, she gushed, "I love him, and he was worth waiting for." And while quarantine pushed some couples over the brink, it only served to bring Cattrall and Thomas closer together. As she told Extra TV in September 2020, they moved to Vancouver, Canada, from April to August 2020 before settling down in New York. Speaking of their union, she enthused, "It ticks every box that I've ever had and then some." Which is a far cry from some of her previous relationships.
Sex ruined Kim Cattrall's first two marriages
When Kim Cattrall was just 19, she said "I do" to a fellow Canadian — a writer named Larry Davis. The pair enjoyed a short union from 1977 to 1979 before eventually getting their marriage annulled. As noted by Express, the actor would later explain, "I was far too young to be married and that killed the first [marriage]."
Just a few years later, however, she was ready to give matrimony a second chance. In 1982, Cattrall married German architect Andre J. Lyson. She was so committed that she became fluent in his native German, but that wasn't enough. "He was in Germany and I was in America for too much of the time," she explained. "The distance was too great." They called it quits in 1989 before she became a household name, and as she told the Boston Herald, she managed to keep the divorce under wraps. "I did it in a private way," she recalled.
But distance and age weren't the only contributing factors to her first two splits. As she admitted to The Sun (via Daily Star), sex was a big issue. "I would constantly make excuses for bad sexual experiences," she told the mag. "Poor sex was a factor in the first two of three marriages breaking up." Cattrall thought their connections would improve over time, but they never did. "I wish I had not made an orgasm my only goal," she mused. "It is all about all-around sexual fulfillment."
'Sex and the City' sabotaged her third marriage
While sex itself was a contributing factor to Kim Cattrall's first two divorces, it was "Sex and the City" that wreaked havoc on her third. The actor tied the knot with American recording engineer and audio equipment designer Mark Levinson in 1998, and this time, Cattrall was totally in sync with her partner in the bedroom. So much so that the couple even published a self-help book on the subject, titled, "Satisfaction: The Art of the Female Orgasm." She also supported his love of music and took the internet by storm when a video of her scatting – while Levinson played the upright bass — went viral. "It was actually to promote his music, and it was a very fun thing to do one afternoon in our little house," she told Yahoo! "I don't know why it's so captured people's imaginations."
Unfortunately, they called it quits in 2004. Speaking with news.com.au in 2016, Cattrall admitted that the show that made her famous ruined her personal life. "It cost me my marriage because I was never home," she explained. "My husband got lonely and upset and competitive, and it was really difficult." She was working 16-hour days, and as she told Express, "Our marriage was swamped by 'Sex And The City.'" Indeed, she spent more time with co-stars than with her husband. "Acting is a self-centered world and everything seems to dissolve in the face of our obsession with work," she mused. "There's always a price to pay."