Today, Sarah Jessica Parker has around a $200 million net worth, too many Manolo Blahniks to count, and a mega-mansion in Manhattan’s West Village. But before becoming Carrie Bradshaw and earning more than $1 million per episode of And Just Like That, the star says her family couldn’t always afford electricity or to celebrate Christmas. Now, she’s telling graduates that growing up in poverty motivated her to build the life she has today.
“I am one of eight kids that struggled financially,” Parker recently said in a commencement speech to Northwestern University students.
“For the most part, as children, we had what we needed, but we rarely had the things that we wanted, and I consider that a great gift because it created in me a hunger, a focused ambition, and a work ethic that’s sort of a point of operation and pride for me.”
Essentially, pining for things she couldn’t afford meant she had things to work towards. And that’s the message she wanted to leave with the next generation entering the workforce: don’t lose your appetite for bigger ambitions.
“Despite the successes you are sure to achieve, material or otherwise, never stop wanting,” she said, while warning that the alternative is “resignation to complacency and inertia.”
