Inside Suzanne Somers And Alan Hamel's Everlasting Love Story
Suzanne Somers' death brought the curtain down on the relationship she had shared with Canadian producer Alan Hamel for over half a century. The star of sitcoms like "Three's Company" and "Step by Step," Somers was as renowned for her entertainment career as she was for her romantic life, the innermost details of which were not hidden from fans. Somers and Hamel's firebrand passion dominated their public commentary across news studios, magazine interviews, self-authored books, and social media videos. If head-over-heels in love was a state of being personified, this couple would define it best.
From their first meeting in the 1960s to their last interaction just hours before Somers' death on October 15, 2023, the pair were bound by eternal desire. As Somers put it to People in 2020, "We worked hard to get to this place where we're comfortable. And we are so content together." The longevity of their romance could be attributed to the simplest of things: sharing a drink, dancing together, and never compromising on sexy time. The success of their rock-solid relationship also relied on unwavering spousal support, which Somers was blessed abundantly with during some of the lowest points in her life.
From wading through hardships to come out stronger on the other side to entering an older, sexier phase of their lives in each other's company, Somers and Hamel set lofty standards of love that few would be able to match. Let's take a deep dive inside Suzanne Somers and Alan Hamel's everlasting love story.
Suzanne Somers and Alan Hamel's relationship got off to a passionate start
The start of Suzanne Somers and Alan Hamel's relationship was as spirited as the rest of their nearly six-decade romance. Fate first brought the lifelong lovers together on the sets of the 1960s show "The Anniversary Game" that Hamel hosted and on which Somers appeared as a model. Only 19 at the time, Somers acquainted herself with the divorced Hamel who was 10 years her senior and the duo soon went out on a date.
Temperatures soared between the two from the get go. "My first date with him, I did everything that my mother told me not to do," Somers said during an appearance on "Daily Blast Live." "It's the first time I ever went to a man's hotel room, and it's the first time I ever slept with a man on the first date." Side note: space brownies were involved. The beginning of their affair foreshadowed the sensational tenor that would come to define their relationship.
Though Somers admitted to leaping at the opportunity to sleep with Hamel, the attraction between them wasn't all sexual. Their initial meeting convinced Somers that Hamel — or the "Johnny Carson of Canada," as she called him — was to be the special man in her life. In fact, their romance transcended ordinary meanings of worldly love. "If you want to get really lofty, did we know each other in another life? It was that instant," she told People.
Lovers' tiffs invaded their relationship – but they managed to push through
Suzanne Somers and Alan Hamel were always driven by fiery passion, even in the moments where romance took a back seat. The duo's legendary pairing wasn't immune to lovers' tiffs. During the earliest phase of their relationship, the celebrity couple apparently had many animated fallouts. "We fought like dogs for 10 years during our dating and living together period," Somers told People, but not without the admission that she found these fights to be "actually kind of sexy." Classic Somers!
Actively desiring each other every step of the way was an advantage. But, their coming together set in motion a string of obstacles on the familial front that the pair had to overcome together. In Hamel's words to Fox News: "[W]e both knew that this was the real deal and worth figuring out, which we did." Marriage was a leveler, and according to Somers, catalyzed greater peace between them to the extent that neither partner remembered the last time they had an argument in years.
Parts of this peacekeeping effort could be attributed to certain strategies Somers picked up during therapy. "You never start any sentence with 'you always,' 'you never' or 'you should,'" she told "Today," advocating instead for a more non-combative style of communication. Take it from someone who was in a successful marriage for almost 50 years. Of Hamel and herself, Somers added: "We're so compatible that even a cross tone will hurt one another's feelings."
The duo married after a decade of dating and blended their families
After a long courtship of approximately a decade, Alan Hamel and Suzanne Somers embarked on an even longer marriage that would conclude only with the latter's death in 2023. They tied the knot in 1977, with this marriage being the second one for both partners. While Somers and Hamel didn't welcome any children together, they each had kids from previous marriages that they brought into this one. Initially, it proved to be a recipe for disaster — or in Somers' words to Closer Weekly, "stepfamily hell." Somers, who shared one son with her first husband Bruce Somers, had a radically different parenting style than the one Hamel favored for his own two children. "At the time, speaking about divorce was a new phenomenon. Blending families was even newer. No one had any rules," she told the outlet. "We battled for years before we became united."
United is probably an understatement. After it weathered the inaugural storm, Somers and Hamel's marriage went on to become the cornerstone of long-lasting celebrity romance. So much so, that Somers turned into an unofficial marital advisor for people across the world, dishing secrets to a happy relationship through interviews and autobiographical books. Sample this wisdom she passed to Fox News: "A good relationship is not about luck. It's about really putting in the effort to make sure that you give each other a lot of attention and respect." Bonus points for sexual attraction.
They built an iconic home together in Palm Springs
During their time together, Alan Hamel and Suzanne Somers called many places their home. But, their protracted association with Palm Springs — on account of a property they purchased there in 1977 — established the pair as esteemed fixtures in the California neighborhood. The sprawling 70-acre premises, that comprised five French-style villas and elite touches like a wine cellar and an amphitheater, had been in the couple's possession for about four decades, designed with the goal of maximum privacy for not just the couple but also the people they hosted. "It's a great home for having guests because they can each go off to their own cottages at the end of the day and have privacy," Somers told People in 2021.
The couple also had real estate to their name in Malibu, but a fire tragedy back in 2007 burned their oceanfront home down. Their luxurious Palm Springs compound remained more an enduring part of their legacy, until they sold it in 2019 to the tune of $8.5 million, according to the New York Post. "It sold because I finally let it go — emotionally, spiritually and physically," Somers told the publication. The couple then moved to a relatively smaller property in the Palm Springs neighborhood, which was notably the work of famed designer Steve Chase, Desert Sun reported. Somers had raved about her stylish new pad, but not without a twinge of nostalgia for her old home, which she called her "beloved paradise."
Hamel supported his wife in her fight for pay parity on 'Three's Company'
Suzanne Somers was the blonde bombshell everyone loved on ABC's hit '70s sitcom "Three's Company" — until she wasn't. A demand to be paid what she deserved put Somers' career-making role as Chrissy Snow in limbo at a time when the idea of female stars fighting for pay parity wasn't fashionable. Around the show's fifth season, Somers made the bold proposition of having her paycheck increased from $30,000 to $150,000 per episode, at par with what her male contemporaries were getting, Yahoo Entertainment observed.
It was an audacious move on Somers' part but her husband Alan Hamel had her back, even attempting to hammer out a favorable contract on her behalf. Unfortunately, he brought the worst news back to her. "You're out, they're making an example out of you," Somers recalled her husband's words. What followed was a smear campaign that threatened to put Somers' career in jeopardy, the television star alleged. "I couldn't get an interview, I was considered trouble," she said.
Somers' role in campaigning for pay equality would eventually be acknowledged in a more progressive future. But at the time, she had only her husband's support. "We're going to make this work for us," he promised her, per Somers (via Good Housekeeping). Hamel stepped up, ditching his own showbiz career in Canada to get his wife back on course, negotiating residencies in Las Vegas and kickstarting businesses that would become synonymous with Somers.
They weren't just lovers but business partners too
Alan Hamel and Suzanne Somers had no qualms in mixing business with pleasure. The crazy-in-love couple were also longtime collaborators on ventures beyond romance, welding their professional journeys together when Hamel turned manager for her during the 1980s. "I noticed her manager was making a lot of short-term deals for her, not career-oriented, long-term deals," he told Inc.com. "So we decided to terminate the manager and I'd take over." Thereafter started the building of Somers' personal brand that hinged on the allure of fitness and glamor (and, later in life, some controversial advocacy for bioidentical hormone replacement).
A memorable highlight was the ThighMaster — an iconic contraption aimed at toning one's thighs, marketed extensively through the '90s with Somers as the brand's celebrity model. It was apparently a throwaway compliment from Hamel aimed at Somers' legs that inspired the legendary ThighMaster ads, which reportedly put sales at over 10 million right off the bat. Her popularity on the Home Shopping Network helped too.
Hamel's business acumen accelerated his wife's entrepreneurial empire that came to comprise everything from meal preps to jewelry and skincare. He was central to the Suzanne Somers brand name, whether it was turning her into a Vegas sensation in the '80s or providing subject matter for her bestselling book "Two's Company." Explaining their individual roles, Somers said: "My husband is the visionary. His great strength is business and numbers [...] I'm out front, and I know the customers."
During their time together, they never spent a night apart
One of the most well-known facts about Suzanne Somers and Alan Hamel's relationship was that the celebrity couple never spent a night apart in all their years together. This little nugget about the longtime lovers was reiterated many times over as a secret to their untiring romance. "We are together 24 hours a day and not one night apart in over 40 years. I crave another 40," Hamel revealed to Fox News in 2020. The couple remained madly in love for decades on end, supposedly satiating each other's emotional needs on all fronts.
As Somers told People: "We are each other's everything. I've never had a night out with the girls and Alan's never had a night out with the boys." While many couples would shirk at the idea of spending every waking minute in the company of their significant other, it was an approach that Somers and Hamel insisted worked in their favor. This proximity didn't come about as an explicitly agreed upon practice — "just an insatiable desire to be together," in Somers' words.
That desire between the iconic couple was so profound that it manifested even when they were asleep. "I'll wake up and we're holding hands all the time!" Somers told Us Weekly in 2021. Clearly, their compatibility didn't require conscious labor; just the simple act of conveying affection through attention was enough. "We give each other a lot of attention," Somers said. "It's not, like, a chore for us."
Their relationship was notoriously filled with hot and heavy romance
Suzanne Somers and Alan Hamel's marriage defined unbridled lovers' passion. The showbiz pair were renowned, if not notorious, for their everlasting appetite for each other — a fact they lost no opportunity to broadcast to the world. Their perpetual (and often shocking) candor about their intimate life kept Somers and Hamel forever relevant in tabloid headlines — one of which echoed Somers' declaration in 2019 that she made love to her husband twice a morning, with a little help from health supplements. "I'm kind of in that groove, like when you were younger and you're in the mood all the time, and so is he because he's on hormone replacements," she told Daily Mail.
Their sexual frequency famously increased over time, with Somers revealing on "Let's Talk With Heather Dubrow" that the pair were having sex thrice before the clock even struck noon. "God, our relationship has always been amazing. But now that our kids are raised and it's just me and Al [...] Man, are we having fun," Somers, then in her 70s, said. The "American Graffiti" star also made no bones about being just as wildly attracted to her husband after decades together as she had been when they first started seeing each other. She told Fox News: "I am madly in love. [...] You know the way it is when you first start dating someone and this might be the one? That feeling has never gone away." Swoon!
Somers' cancer journey put pressure on their marriage
Suzanne Somers spent a major part of her life with breast cancer, a condition she was first diagnosed with in 2000. Even before her own encounter with the malignant disease, Somers had been vigilant about it since her sister was also a cancer patient. A health check showed a tumor in her breast that her annual mammogram couldn't catch. "I'm very strong, and I was in such shock, because I have always taken care of myself, and, I just thought, it would never happen to me, but I think that is what everybody thinks," the fitness queen said on Larry King's show in 2001, going public with her cancer experience. Alan Hamel was with Somers the moment she received her diagnosis, calling the day the saddest one of his life. "It was like a black cloud descended," he told People.
A series of treatments set Somers on the road to recovery, with the television icon declaring that she was cancer-free by 2007. While Hamel had been her unwavering support system through the years, the couple hit a rough patch in 2008 after Somers went through a cancer misdiagnosis — a subject that was the focus of her autobiographical book "Knockout." "The depression I experienced following this ordeal almost split us apart," Somers told People, revealing that it took years of therapy and emotional readjustments to bring them back on track. Sadly, cancer reared its head again in the weeks leading up to Somers' death.
They kept things spicy on social media
Alan Hamel and Suzanne Somers were — as social media denizens say it — relationship goals, the spark that first ignited their love story in the '60s blazing bright for decades. While tales of their real-life capers had always been the stuff of legend in television pop circles, the iconic couple also learnt to maximize new-age digital platforms to keep fans attuned to their lives. And on social media, where most everything goes, Hamel and Somers had free rein to indulge in their trademark spirited romance.
In one such exhibit from 2020, Somers beamed as Hamel rang in Valentine's Day with a special strip tease for her — and her thousands-strong following. Another time, when Somers notoriously marked her 73rd birthday with a nude photo, photographer Hamel was naturally her biggest cheerleader, defending his wife against scandalized critics. As for Somers, all she had to say was that it had been a hot day and "it just seemed weird to have a top on" (via New York Post).
Fans also got an insight into their domestic life via live sessions Somers hosted on Facebook, while an outflow of vintage pictures commemorating Somers and Hamel's wide-eyed days of romance made for the best kind of throwbacks. "Over 50 years ago I wrapped by arms around you and knew I would never let you go," Somers wrote in one Instagram post, alongside a sweet monochrome picture of the once-young duo caught in a loving embrace.
They enjoyed a daily morning-to-night marital routine
Suzanne Somers and Alan Hamel were not ones to live by anyone's rules — except their own. Implausible though it may seem, there was a certain method to their madness when it came to establishing romantic formulas that kept the spark between them alive for years together. The beloved showbiz couple enjoyed a well-oiled daily routine that began, even before the sun came up, with impassioned intimacy and sweet, stolen moments. "Every morning the first thing he says to me — and it's not true, and I don't care — 'You're so beautiful,'" Somers told AARP, gushing that their love was the stuff of poetic fantasies.
The pair's day began with coffee and eventually moved to cocktail hour at five in the evening, glimpses of which fans got during their weekly Facebook Live sessions. "We date every night," she told Us Weekly, emphasizing on the importance of the practice between married couples. For the celebrity pair, their in-house bar served as the rendezvous spot where they savored tequila (and romance) together, followed by candlelight dinners. As they say, it's the little things that matter the most.
"We sip tequila, listen to music, sometimes we dance. [...] It's not phony, really. It's just what we do," said Somers. Their steamy schedule kept passions burning throughout the coronavirus-induced pandemic as well, with the couple having endless alone time to look forward to while quarantining. Needless to say, naughty moments were in no short supply throughout this period.
Hamel wrote Somers a heartwarming love letter right before her death
Over half a century of togetherness came to an end when Alan Hamel's lifelong partner Suzanne Somers died on October 15, 2023. She was one day short of her 77th birthday, for which her family had gathered at the couple's home. The "Three's Company" star passed away early morning after spending her final few hours with her beloved husband, who revealed that he continued talking to her even as her health was declining.
"Then I kissed her, and she responded to that, and it was a physical response with her lips. I knew she was still with us," Hamel told People. Somers endured a prolonged experience with breast cancer, and in the days leading up to her death, her condition unfortunately worsened. Yet, in keeping with his wife's wishes, Hamel decided against confining her to a hospital during her last days.
The end of Somers' life, spent in the company of her husband, was deeply symbolic of their decades of love. Not long before she died, Hamel presented her with a handwritten love letter paired with pink peonies that Somers adored. "I weep when I think about my feelings for you. Feelings... that's getting close, but not all the way," Hamel wrote, as quoted by ET Online. "So I will call it, 'us,' uniquely, magically, indescribably wonderful 'us.'" Somers' family raised a toast to her, with plans to celebrate her life with her favorite cake. Lots of it.