And Just Like That: Sex and the City Revival Explains Kim Cattrall's Absence

And Just Like That... we have an answer!

HBO Max's Sex and the City revival premiered Thursday, and it didn't waste any time in giving us a solid answer about why Kim Cattrall's Samantha Jones is not a part of the series.

“And where’s the fourth Musketeer? Where’s Samantha?” Bitsy Von Muffling (guest star Julie Halston) asked Sarah Jessica Parker‘s Carrie Bradshaw, Kristin Davis‘ Charlotte York, and Cynthia Nixon‘s Miranda Hobbes early into the series premiere.

“Oh, she’s no longer with us," Charlotte said, clearly making giving the wrong impression.

Seriously, could you imagine if the show actually killed Samantha off-screen?

It would not work well for fans and would probably render the new show a huge failure.

“Oh, no, I’m so sorry, I just meant, she’s not, with us,” Charlotte added after some nudging from Miranda.

“She’s in London,” Carrie finally says, but you can tell there's more to it than that.

“Oh, thank God. After the horror show we’ve been through, I assume anyone I haven’t seen in a while has passed on or moved to Palm Beach,” Bitsy said.

Carrie subsequently revealed to viewers that Samantha quit New York for the U.K. after she fired her as her publicist.

“You know, it is kind of like she’s dead, Samantha. We never even talk about her,” Miranda said to Carrie.

“Well, what is there to say?” Carrie hits back, expounding as follows:

“I told her that, you know, because of what the book business is now, it just didn’t make sense for me to keep her on as a publicist. She said, ‘Fine,’ and then fired me as a friend.”

Carrie said that she tried to reach out to Samantha, but she dodged all calls from her former friends.

“I understand that she was upset, but I thought I was more to her than an ATM,” she said.

"I always thought the four of us would be friends forever.”

Cattrall was a pivotal part of the original show's success and its movie sequels, but the actress decided against reprising the role on a third movie and, in turn, the revival.

"And Just Like That was never four [characters],” showrunner Michael Patrick King dished to The Hollywood Reporter in advance of the series premiere.

“It never was on the radar as four because Kim Cattrall, for whatever reason, didn’t want to play Samantha anymore while we were doing the [third] movie.”

“I never thought, ‘Oh, there’s a hole I have to fill.’ Samantha doesn’t not exist in their lives. [And Just Like That] was born of these three characters: What’s their life, and who can I bring in to inform it?”

Cattrall's self-imposed exile from the franchise comes after reports that she and Parker were embroiled in a feud.

Co-star Chris Noth shed light on the matter in an interview with The Guardian earlier this month.

"I have to tell you, I have absolutely no idea what her thinking is, or her emotions. I do know that I'm very close with SJ and [Cattrall's] descriptions of her don't even come close," Noth told the outlet.

"I just don't like to see anyone talking down about SJ because she's a target and people can be nasty," he added.

"I feel very protective of her and I was not happy about that. That's all I'll say about that." Noth said that she was "marvelous" in the role of Samantha.

"Some people move on for their own reasons. I don't know what hers were," he added, noting that he wished "that whole thing had never happened because it was sad and uncomfortable."