Suzanne Somers puts work on ‘back burner’ after facing cancer again
Suzanne Somers is putting work on the back burner after recently fighting cancer again, Page Six has exclusively learned.
Fans grew concerned about the “Three’s Company” icon, 76, as she hasn’t appeared recently on her popular Facebook Live show with her producer husband, Alan Hamel.
Hamel told Page Six exclusively that Somers has been dealing with health issues.
He noted that his wife, a longtime health advocate, has bravely fought cancer before over the years — including a breast cancer diagnosis in her 50s, as well as skin cancer in her 30s, and she also had a hysterectomy years ago.
“Suzanne has lived with cancer all her life,” her husband told us, adding, “In her 20s, she’d also dealt with two hyperplasia … which is the waiting room for cancer.”
Hamel, 87, continued: “She has now dealt with her cancer once again” — and that “on June 6, she got an all-clear, but cancer is tricky and we will now closely monitor everything going forward.”
Hamel added, “All her doctors said if she didn’t lead a chemical-free, organic life supported by bioidentical hormones, she wouldn’t be with us.”
Somers famously turned to healthy habits including prioritizing sleep, switching to an all-organic diet and cutting out chemicals in food and beauty products after a breast cancer diagnosis in 2000.
Ageless Somers said in a 2021 interview with Park Magazine of her healthy lifestyle: “I have to say that since I embraced health, I have never enjoyed life more. I like the way I look. I like the way I feel. I like my energy … I can tell you that aging can be so incredible if you know how to approach it. It takes a little bit of work.”
Though she is now cancer-free, Hamel said, “We decided to put work on the back burner for now and focus on her health.”
Hamel said, “Cancer is a huge epidemic. A few years ago, she dedicated one of her books to 20-plus people in our lives who died of cancer.”
After publicly revealing she had breast cancer in 2001, Somers wondered during a “Larry King Live” appearance whether birth control pills she started taking in the ’60s contributed to her condition.
She also told CBS Los Angeles in 2020: “Even when I was Chrissy on ‘Three’s Company,’ I had had cancer three times … They call it severe hyperplasia in your uterus. I didn’t make a big deal about it. In my 30s, I got a malignant melanoma in my back.”
Hamel also said of her health issues in her 20s, “one of her doctors blamed ‘the pill.'”
In fun-loving Somers’ absence, her Facebook show has been a family affair, hosted by daughter-in-law Caroline — who’s also the head of the star’s company — as well as Caroline’s grown daughters and Hamel’s daughter, Leslie Hamel.
“It’s turned into this really wonderful family affair,” hubby Hamel said.
We previously reported how Somers, the author of “A New Way to Age,” took a break from her online show due to an injury in 2020 when she needed neck surgery after a spill down some stairs at home.
Hamel tells us Somers is still dealing with some health ramifications of that accident.
“She also broke her neck in a terrible fall and the concussion created a bad case of hydrocephalus, which impacted her balance and walking,” he said.
Somers first launched her successful career in the 1973 movie “American Graffiti,” directed by future “Star Wars” legend George Lucas.
But she recently revealed that she almost lost out on the role. “I almost left because my parking meter was running out, and I had no money to extend it,” she recalled.
She went on to star in 100 episodes of “Three’s Company,” from 1977 to 1981, and later was cast in another smash sitcom, “Step By Step.”
We wish her a speedy recovery.
