Kristen Johnston revealed she wasn’t sober when she filmed her iconic “Sex and the City” window scene.
“I was a hot mess,” the actress admitted on Thursday’s episode of Chelsea Handler’s “Dear Chelsea” podcast.
Johnston, 58, explained that she was battling addiction when she played Carrie Bradshaw’s (Sarah Jessica Parker) old friend, socialite Lexi Featherston, on Season 6 of the hit series in 2004.
During the episode, titled “Splat,” Lexi is told she can’t smoke inside a packed penthouse, so she goes on a long rant before she falls out the open window and plummets 18 stories to her death.
“I was just kind of messy,” Johnston recalled. “Like late at night after I was doing a lot of theater, a lot of drinking after theater, lots of wine, the occasional foray into cocaine, but not like [Lexi].”
She joked, “But i knew what I was talking about — let’s just put it that way.”
Johnston, whose younger sister, Julie Herschede, died in 2020 after an addiction battle, admitted she “was an addict” since she was a kid.
“Even though I obviously wasn’t doing it then. But I just needed to escape always. I did not like being in my skin,” the “Austin Powers” actress shared.
“But at a certain point, at like five o’clock, you’re like, ‘What do people do at night if they don’t get drunk?’”
The “3rd Rock from the Sun” alum explained that, as an addict, “you have to just think of other things to do with your time” to avoid drinking and doing drugs.
“You don’t realize until you quit how much time, if you’re a real active addict like I was, how much time is spent figuring stuff out, how to get this, getting that thing, getting this delivered,” she continued. “You know, it takes a lot of energy.”
Johnston wrote about her addiction to alcohol and pills in her 2013 memoir, “Guts: The Endless Follies and Tiny Triumphs of a Giant Disaster.”
She revealed in the book that her addiction began in high school and at its height, saw her drinking two bottles of wine nightly.
On Handler’s podcast, Johnston explained that AA programs “weren’t for me,” but she eventually got sober with the help of close friends in New York.
When asked how long she’s been sober, Johnston replied, “This time, 10 years. But there was a little burble about 10 years ago, and then before that was 10 years. So altogether, probably 20.”
Last year, Johnston told Page Six that she loves the idea of being remembered for her short but memorable “Sex and the City” role.
“It probably will go on my gravestone, that quote of ‘New York is over,’” she said.
“And you know what? I’m totally OK with that, if that is my legacy, Lexi Featherston.”
If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Helpline at 800-662-4357
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