Suzanne Somers has enjoyed great success in her long career.
The 76-year-old had her breakout role in the 1970s on Three’s Company, had a lucrative Las Vegas residency in the 1980s, built an empire with the ThighMaster in the 1990s and revived her acting career with Step by Step.
But there’s one opportunity Suzanne — who has been married to husband Alan Hamel for 55 years — 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, and I turned it down,” the actress, 76, told the Wednesday episode of the Behind the Velvet Rope with David Yontef podcast.
“And everybody was like, ‘Why turn that down? It’s 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 residency in Las Vegas in the 1980s, built an empire in the 1990s with the ThighMaster, and revived her acting career with Step by Step
She continued, “I said, ‘First, I have to live in New York.’ I don’t really want to live in New York. I like the weather down here, and I like the atmosphere down here,” she explained.
“But secondly, I’m not a good contender for time. And there you have to interrupt and get in and 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 that her salary be increased from $30,000 per episode to the $150,000 per episode her co-star John Ritter was making.
“At that time, the men earned 10 to 15 times more than I did,” she said Fox News digital.
“And I was on the No. 1 show. It just seemed wrong because I was clearly underpaid. And it’s not like I stopped the show. My contract expired. We met 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 recalls. ‘It was a gray day. And the front door opened in a way that you knew bad news was coming. It was very slow. And I heard my husband going up the stairs very slowly. I met him on the landing.
Early years: Susan Lucci, center 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 gone. You were gone within the first five minutes of me entering the meeting.’ … Now I was out of work and labeled ‘problems’ just because I wanted to be paid fairly for my work.’
The press turned on 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. And what she had was the fact that almost everyone on the planet knew who she was.
After a lucrative residency in Las Vegas with a grueling schedule, the Three’s Company alum wanted to try something new.
She launched the ThighMaster in 1990 and it was an instant phenomenon. She said she stopped counting how many she sold after 10 million.
The View: But there’s one chance she got 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, and I turned it down,” the actress, 76, shared on Wednesday’s episode of the Behind the Velvet Rope with David Yontef podcast
Long-lasting love: Suzanne has been married to her husband Alan Hamel for 55 years
No regrets: “And everyone was like, ‘Why turn that down? It’s a national show,'” Somers recalls
In 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 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 controls the camera.
‘There is so much freedom on the internet than on regular television. I just love where I’ve been and where I’m going.”