Suzanne Somers has had a lot of success in her long career.
The 76-year-old had her breakout role in the 1970s in Three’s Company, had a lucrative Las Vegas residency in the 1980s, built an empire in the 1990s with the ThighMaster and rekindled her acting career in with Step by Step.
But there is one opportunity Suzanne – who has been married to husband Alan Hamel for 55 years – was presented with that she passed on: co-hosting The View with Barbara Walters.
‘I was originally asked to be on the original View with Barbara Walters and whoever else, and I turned it down,’ the actress, 76, shared during Wednesday’s episode of the Behind the Velvet Rope with David Yontef podcast.
‘And everyone said, “Why would you turn that down? It is a national show,”‘ Somers recalled.
Mogul: Suzanne Somers has had a lot of success in her long career. The 76-year-old had her breakout role in the 1970s in Three’s Company but there’s one opportunity she turned down
Bombshell: She had a lucrative Las Vegas residency in the 1980s, built an empire in the 1990s with the ThighMaster and rekindled her acting career in with Step by Step
She continued: ‘I said, ‘First of all, I have to live in New York. I don’t really wanna live in New York. I like the weather down here, and I like the vibe down here.” she explained.
‘But secondly, I don’t do well vying for time. And there, you gotta interrupt and butt in and butt out. It’s just not my personality.’
And she walked away and ‘never looked back.’
Suzanne was fired from Three’s Company after four years on the show when she demanded her pay be raised from $30,000 per episode to the $150,000 per episode that her co-star John Ritter was making.
‘At that time, the men were making 10 to 15 times more than I was,’ she told Fox News Digital.
‘And I was on the No. 1 show. It just seemed wrong because I was clearly being underpaid. And it’s not like I stopped the show. My contract was up. We had a meeting with the lawyers. But, by then, they had already decided.
‘I was waiting at home — and remember, this was a time before cell phones, so it felt like an eternity,’ Somers recalled. ‘It was a gray day. And the front door opened in a way that you knew bad news was coming. It was really slow. And I heard my husband going up the stairs really slowly. I met him at the landing.
Early years: Susan Lucci, center in red, with, from left, Whoopi Goldberg, Barbara Walters, Joy Behar, Sherri Shepherd and Elisabeth Hasselbeck in 2012
‘He looked at me, shook his head, and said, “You’re out. You were gone within the first five minutes when I walked into the meeting.” … Now, I was out of work and labeled ‘trouble’ only because I wanted to be paid fairly for doing my job.’
The press turned against her and she found herself wondering what to do when she realized she needed to focus on what she had and not what she didn’t have. And what she had was the fact that almost everyone on the planet knew who she was.
After a lucrative Las Vegas residency that had a grueling schedule, the Three’s Company alum wanted to try something new.
She launched the ThighMaster in 1990 and it was an immediate phenomenon. She said she stopped counting how many she sold after 10 million.
The View: But there’s one opportunity she was presented with that she passed on: co-hosting The View with Barbara Walters. ‘I was originally asked to be on the original View with Barbara Walters and whoever else, and I turned it down,’ the actress, 76, shared during Wednesday’s episode of the Behind the Velvet Rope with David Yontef podcast
Long time love: Suzanne has been married to her husband Alan Hamel for 55 years
No regrets: ‘And everyone said, “Why would you turn that down? It is a national show,”‘ Somers recalled
By 1992 she was the Home Shopping Network’s top-selling brands. But she has one complaint.
‘My biggest complaint today is that I work too much. I’m always keeping busy. The pandemic worked for me because we started doing Facebook Live shows and Instagram shows three times a week.
‘We start the show with some tequila on ice, and it’s like having a drink together while my husband is running the camera.
‘There’s just so much freedom on the internet than there is on mainstream television. I’m just loving where I’ve been and where I’m heading.’
