Inside her happy new life and marriage

The British-born actress has built a career that has won her both critical acclaim and legions of fans, all the while remaining outspoken and honest about her experience on the show that cemented her as a pop-culture icon. 

As she turns 70 this week, Kim – who describes herself as a “Liverpool-born, Canadian-bred New Yorker” to her 1.7 million followers on Instagram – is said to be happier than ever in the latest chapter of her life, with her husband of eight months by her side.

Kim’s happy ever after

In December 2025, after almost ten years of dating, Kim married her fourth husband, former audio engineer Russell Thomas, in front of just 12 guests at Chelsea Old Town Hall.

The bride wore a Christian Dior skirt suit, styled by Sex and the City’s legendary costume designer, Patricia Field, and the couple honeymooned in the Maldives. 

“Married life is fantastic,” the actress has said. “There’s so much laughter in our relationship. It’s one of the keys to a great relationship… enjoying the same things. We don’t have fantasies about what it could or should be: it just is. And we love each other. It’s great to have someone on your team.”

“Kim and Russell are clearly in love,” a source who has spent time with the couple tells hello!. “It’s very sweet to see them together, as she is really soft and girly around him – the complete opposite of Samantha Jones.”

The couple met in 2016, when Russell, 55, was working at the BBC and Kim was recording an essay about insomnia for the Radio 4 programme Woman’s Hour.

The actress, who was born in Merseyside and moved to Canada with her family when she was three months old, had been forced to pull out of a play in London because of her own experience of sleep deprivation, which she has partially attributed to menopause and stress. 

After the pair followed each other on Twitter (now X), Russell messaged the actress and they stayed in touch, with Russell even flying out to visit Kim at her home in Canada, which they now share as their primary residence.

The couple start every day with a cup of tea, Kim has said. “It’s hot water over a tea bag, with milk, no sugar and exactly the right temperature. It’s very British!”

The source tells us: “They have a really lovely life travelling around together. They adore splitting their time between Vancouver Island, London and New York.” In February, the newlyweds attended Conner Ives’s show during London Fashion Week. 

“She relies on him to support her on the red carpet and at industry events – he clearly gives her confidence and they share a great sense of humour,” the source adds.

“He’s from near Manchester originally, and Kim was born in Liverpool, so they share a certain northern sense of humour. They laugh a lot and deeply enjoy each other’s company. Russell dotes on her and I think he often looks at her as though he can’t believe his luck!”

Life after Sex and the City

The last decade has signalled a new chapter for the actress, as she has said goodbye to her Sex and the City ties and settled into life with Russell, with British projects on BBC radio and TV at the forefront of her work.

In 2017, after years of rumoured feuds between the cast members, Kim said that she had “never been friends” with the other stars of the show, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon, adding that it felt like a “toxic relationship”.

“We’ve never been friends,” she said. “We’ve been colleagues, and in some ways it’s a healthy place to be, because then you have a clear line between your professional life and your personal life.”

At the time, she also ruled out appearing in a third Sex and the City film, saying that Sarah Jessica “could have been nicer” about the situation. “The thing that still bothers me is this feeling of being in some way made to be the baddie,” she said. “I never asked for any money; I never asked for any projects. To be thought of as some kind of diva is absolutely ridiculous.”

In 2018, Kim criticised Sarah Jessica for sending condolences in the wake of her brother’s death after he went missing from his home in Alberta, Canada. “Your continuous reaching out is a painful reminder of how cruel you really were then and now,” she wrote on Instagram.

But in 2023, Kim made an unexpected, brief cameo in the final episode of the second season of And Just Like That …, a sequel to Sex and the City.

When it was cancelled last August after three seasons, Kim posted an image of a sunset on Instagram, captioning it: “It’s the end of a very long week,” immediately sparking theories among fans that the post was her way of sharing her feelings about the show.

Kim has said that Sex and the City had a huge impact on her relationships, admitting that she prioritised work over her personal life. Before meeting Russell, the actress had been married three times. She tied the knot with the Canadian writer Larry Davis in 1977, but their partnership was annulled two years later.

In 1982, she married the German architect Andre J Lyson, moving to Frankfurt just as her career in the US was beginning to take off; they split in 1989. In 1998, Kim married the music engineer Mark Levinson, with whom she published a book – Satisfaction: The Art of the Female Orgasm – in 2002. The couple divorced in 2004.

Kim has opened up about how she considered IVF treatment in her early forties but realised it would be impossible due to her commitments to Sex and the City, on which she worked 19-hour days.

The show broke boundaries in its depictions of women enjoying and talking about sex, and its focus on female friendship and single women without children was considered groundbreaking at the time. It ran for six series, from 1998 until 2004, and Kim, who won a Golden Globe for her performance as Samantha, appeared in its two spin-off films in 2008 and 2010.

Kim’s acting career

When Sex and the City began, Kim was arguably the biggest star among the cast, with her film and TV appearances having included Porky’s in 1981, Police Academy in 1984 and the lead in the romantic comedy Mannequin, which was a box-office hit in 1987, when Kim was 30.

She took more theatrical roles in the Nineties and returned to the stage in the wake of Sex and the City, starring in plays on Broadway and in London’s West End, as well as appearing on TV in the BBC’s Bafta Award-nominated The Witness for the Prosecution in 2016 and the 2022 revival of Queer as Folk.

Now, Kim is focusing on doing the things she loves, whether that’s reading books she’s never had time to read, advocating for causes close to her heart – she is a proud ambassador for Kew Gardens in London – or following her love of fashion. The actress, who has said that London style inspires her most, maintains a close relationship with Sex and the City’s stylist, Patricia Field, saying that the work they did together “changed my life”.

As for work, she’s picking roles that feel right for her. “I don’t want to be on a set and realise that the character I’m playing is a character that I’ve already played many times before,” she has said. 

This summer, Kim returned to radio with BBC Radio 4’s Central Intelligence, an award-winning drama about America’s CIA, in which she stars with Kelsey Grammar and David Duchovny. She also has two “dream” projects in development. “They’re really good – two very different characters, but just a blast to play. I’m saying yes to what challenges me.

“One of my criteria for work is: ‘Is this going to be stressful?’ or ‘Is this going to be fun?’ I choose fun over stress,” she has said. “I’m fortunate that I get to choose my projects, rather than being forced to do them. It’s a great luxury, and I’m having the best time.”