Secrets Exposed: Suzanne Somers' 'Chaotic' Past Including Family Turmoil and Shocking Arrest
Suzanne Somers had a chaotic past before becoming a household name.
Oct. 16 2023, Published 3:30 p.m. ET
Suzanne Somers rose to fame as one of America's sweethearts on the hit sitcom Three's Company, having overcome her fair share of trials and tribulations in her younger years and while filming the iconic show with her costars.
RadarOnline.com can reveal secrets from her past, including family turmoil, a shocking arrest, and a bitter feud with her castmates long before she died one day ahead of her 77th birthday.
RadarOnline.com can reveal secrets from her past, including family turmoil, a shocking arrest, and a bitter feud with her costars.
Despite the drama, Somers was known for keeping a smile on her face.
"Suzanne is the ultimate Hollywood survivor," pop culture expert Chris Mann shared. "She has always been laughing her way to the bank."
Somers had been candid about her troubled childhood with an alcoholic father, revealing how it brought her to a dark place before freeing her.
The actress previously detailed her troubled childhood.
"That great guy [he was] faded and the person who emerged was the drunken one: mean, frightening, abusive," she penned in her book, Two's Company: A Fifty- Year Romance With Lessons Learned in Love, Life & Business. "Laughter was replaced by long scary nights hiding from him in a locked closet, where my brother, sister, mother, and I trembled in fear, praying he wouldn't find us and hoping he'd just pass out."
Although she faced a deeply impactful struggle, Somers said she remained focused on the positive, adding, "All I learned as a result of his alcoholism and criticism gave me my drive. I now realize I am who I am because of what we went through — that his disease was my greatest teacher and that forgiveness is liberating."
She also opened up about her time on the hit show 'Three's Company.'
Later on in life, the actress was a struggling 24-year-old model and single mom of one struggling to make ends meet. In the fall of 1969, she bounced a $250 rent check for a home in Lake Tahoe.
Her landlord at the time, Bert Jakobson, said "she never responded to my written requests for the money," so he put it in the hands of their local sheriff's department.
Months later, the blonde bombshell was arrested in San Francisco, where she was booked on $1,250 bail in March 1970.
Her then-boyfriend, Steve Sooper, paid the bondsman so she could be released and Somers ultimately made good on the money she owed her landlord.
Somers went on to find big-time success seven years later while portraying ditsy, fun-loving blonde Chrissy Snow alongside John Ritter and Joyce DeWitt in Three's company.
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Somers was fired after asking for a pay raise.
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Tension reached an all-time high after DeWitt accused Somers of trying to be the center of focus, with animosity boiling over in 1980 when she and her husband/manager, Alan Hamel, demanded she get paid as much as Ritter. She wanted a raise from $30k to $150k a week, but when producers balked, she failed to show up at some tapings.
"The show's response was, 'Who do you think you are?'" Somers told PEOPLE, claiming they told her point-blank that Ritter "is the star."
That same year, after four seasons on ABC's Emmy-winning comedy series, the entrepreneur was fired. She decided to move forward after being "ostracized."
After her work transition, Somers performed shows in Las Vegas and eventually went on to launch a fitness and skincare empire. Throughout her career, she raked in big bucks with the Thigh Master and her best-selling books, having weathered a wildfire that destroyed her home in Malibu, California, back in 2007 prior to her death.
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