These Two ‘Three’s Company’ Stars Haven’t Spoken in 30 Years

Three’s Company is the story of the relationship between three roommates—Chrissy Snow, Janet Wood, and Jack Tripper—but in real life, the relationship between the actors who played them suddenly soured after the show’s fifth season.

Heading into the comedy’s sixth season, Suzanne Somers, who played Chrissy, asked for a raise, but a dispute with the producers led to her leaving the series and being replaced by a new actor. And when Somers left Three’s Company, she left everything behind, including her friendship with co-stars Joyce DeWitt (Janet) and John Ritter (Jack).

Thirty years later, Somers and DeWitt finally reunited and shared some behind-the-scenes insight into their differing views on the show at the time. The pair have also spoken publicly about how they both connected with Ritter before his death in 2003. Read on to learn more about this longstanding rift.

Somers left the show after asking for a raise.

As Somers explained, when she was renegotiating her contract, she asked to be paid the same amount as Ritter. “So we renegotiated for a sixth year because we had to, my contract was up,” she told Entertainment Tonight in 2020. “And they fired me. They fired me for asking to be paid on par with the men. … They need you to set an example so that no other woman in television gets cocky and thinks they can ask to be paid on par with the men.”

She said she was considered “greedy” for wanting equal pay.
Somers said that after she was fired from the series, others who were still working on the show kept their distance. “It was sad. It was like being estranged from family, and no matter what those producers said to them when they went back to the rehearsal room, they saw me as greedy,” she told Entertainment Tonight. “They painted me as if she was trying to ruin the show, and so the whole show—the cast and crew—shunned me. … So I never spoke to anyone from that show again. Never again.”

But, she eventually reunited with her castmates.


Somers and DeWitt met for the first time in 30 years when DeWitt joined Somers on her talk show, Suzanne Somers Breaking Through, in 2012.

On the show, Somers explained that her goal in joining Three’s Company was to make money to support herself and her child, as she was a single mother. “I always thought of it as a business venture—show business,” Somers told DeWitt. “In a serious group of actors, I might have pissed people off, and if I had, I’m really sorry. I really needed the money.”

DeWitt and Somers acknowledged their differences.

DeWitt told Somers that she decided to join her talk show because “it was time” and she knew she needed to “say what she said” when it came to celebrating the joy the show brought to people.

DeWitt explained the gap between her and Somers, “We have very different approaches to our careers. We have very different needs. I don’t have kids that I’m raising on my own. I’m not business-minded, so I don’t understand a business-minded person.”

Somers also reached out to Ritter.

During the conversation, DeWitt and Somers talked about how Ritter reached out to them to propose that they co-star on his early-2000s series 8 Simple Rules. The women weren’t happy with the script, so the show went in a different direction.

Somers shared more about her interaction with Ritter in an interview with Entertainment Tonight.

“He said, ‘I forgive you,’ which required a lot of maturity on my part to say, ‘You forgive me?’ So I said, ‘Thank you,'” Somers recalled of their phone call. “He said, ‘You know, I’m doing a show, 8 Simple Rules, and we have this dream sequence and I have this nightmare, and in that nightmare, you and Joyce [DeWitt] are in the nightmare.

So I was pretty quiet. I said, ‘You know, the public is really eager for you and me to be together again. I don’t think me coming back as a nightmare is the best thing we can do.’ I said, ‘Why don’t we find a project that works for both of us?’ and so we decided to do that. Let’s find a show for both of us, and then a month later, he passed away.”

DeWitt and Ritter remained friendly, otherwise.
DeWitt, on the other hand, shared a story about spending one last fun night with Ritter before he passed away. They happened to be staying in nearby hotels in New York City, and when she found out he was there, she called his hotel and left a message. “As I was walking out the door, the phone rang, and I picked it up and it was Johnathan,” DeWitt said.told Somers. “And he said, ‘Honey, we have three parties and a dinner to do tonight. I’ll pick you up at 7!'” She added of their evening together, “It was amazing… and a month later, he passed away.”

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