What Happened To Sally Jessy Raphael And Why Was Her Show Canceled?

Back in the day, home sick from school, you had few entertainment choices except daytime talk shows. There was Oprah Winfrey, of course, and Jerry Springer, but there were also other no-less-entertaining shows like the ones hosted by Ricki Lake and Sally Jessy Raphael. Raphael in particular picked up a fan base thanks to her iconic strawberry-blond hair, her even-more-iconic red glasses, and above all, her empathy. Even when she was interviewing the most off-the-wall guests her producers could find, Raphael seemed genuinely interested in their stories.

Raphael was, after all, the host of TalkNet, a call-in radio show where listeners asked her to weigh in on various current events, topics in their own lives, and more. Eventually, though, Raphael was looking for what was next. Her agent approached NBC Radio asking for a raise, and she later told The Television Academy Foundation, "The man at NBC — the suit — said, 'If the broad doesn't want to do the show, we'll get another broad.' ... Just by that comment alone, the broad wasn't gonna work for him anymore."

Instead, talk show host Phil Donahue recommended Raphael go into daytime television, and the rest is history. She anchored "Sally" for many years until, suddenly, the show went off the air in 2002. Raphael is still around, still reminding you of those days when you could see her on television every afternoon. But ... what happened to her in the years since, and why was "Sally" canceled anyway? Read on to find out.

At first, when Sally Jessy Raphael developed her talk show "Sally," she was focused on doing genuine interviews with people of genuine public interest. "We had a lot of experts," Raphael later told The Television Academy Foundation, "because I didn't — I don't proclaim to know as much about any medical, or given, or psychological thing. I'm no expert. ... So we did have panels, we had guests — authoritative people who knew what they were talking about."

Unfortunately, as the entertainment landscape evolved in the 1990s, "Sally" had to change to keep up with her competitors. Jerry Springer was seeing massive success from featuring the most outrageous, controversial, cartoonish characters he could find on his show, goading them into fights that would get the whole audience chanting along. Springer was even so successful that he made an appearance on "Days of Our Lives."

"Sally" became more salacious, and Raphael wasn't a fan of her own talk show anymore. She later told Oprah Winfrey (via People), "The last years of doing those Maury Povich/Jerry [Springer] shows? I hated them. I was betrayed by some of the producers into doing that." Upon further reflection, Raphael even blamed herself for the show's decline in respectability. "Come to think of it," she said, "I should have fought harder for what I knew was right — what I knew that I didn't want to do."

In 2002, after nearly two decades on the air, "Sally" was suddenly canceled. There was a lot of public interest in the end of Sally Jessy Raphael's show; after all, Raphael was one of daytime television's mainstays, and none of the other hosts had a signature look as iconic as her red glasses. Still, Raphael remained tight-lipped for a long time about why, exactly, her show was yanked from the airwaves.

Eventually, Raphael opened up to the Daily Mail about why she was kicked off television. She claimed that producers were looking for an excuse to get rid of her, and when she revealed to them that she was facing cancer, the show got cut. "I was stupid enough to tell them," she said. Raphael has been cancer-free since.

In 2025, though, she offered an alternate explanation for the situation. "When we went off the air, they fired me. I never left the show where there was money," she insisted to People. She said producers confronted her over a tiny drop in ratings, from a 4.9 to a 4.8. "Anybody today in the morning slots ... would give their right eye for a 4.8," Raphael said, and she's right; daytime audiences have all but evaporated. For reference, Drew Barrymore's talk show was considered a major hit when Season 5 premiered to a 0.88 in 2024. "I said, 'Geez.' And so they fired me," she explained. "I wouldn't have left the job no matter how lousy it was."

By 2010, audiences missed Sally Jessy Raphael enough that Oprah Winfrey brought her back for a "Where Are They Now?" segment. The show also featured interviews with a number of other talk show hosts, like Ricki Lake, Geraldo Rivera, and Montel Williams discussing their lives on television, their careers since their shows ended, and what drew them to daytime in the first place. The show even featured Phil Donahue, the man who lifted Raphael's career from radio to TV, and she's not the only one he inspired. "I have said this many times before; if it weren't for Phil Donahue, there would never have been an 'Oprah Show,'" Winfrey told her audience. (Click here for the untold truth of "The Oprah Winfrey Show.")

Speaking with her colleague, Raphael revealed that at first, she was happy to no longer be involved in the rigorous process of television production. "It was two weeks — great, I don't have to get up," Raphael explained. "And then it was seven years — why doesn't anybody call me?"

Instead of working, she filled her time traveling. She also worked on the farm she owned with her husband, Karl, taking care of the horses and chickens that they raised together. "I'm doing a show now about a talk show host who is asked to leave the air and what happens to her after that," Raphael told Winfrey, though, unfortunately, that project doesn't seem to have ever materialized.

In 2014, years after she'd promised Oprah Winfrey she was working on a new show, Sally Jessy Raphael finally made it back to television ... or at least, a show created for the internet. That year, she launched the short-lived web series "Sally Jessy Rides," produced by queer television network Logo. Acknowledging Raphael's longstanding status as a favorite of queer people, the show paired the host with a number of gay-famous celebrities. She interviewed them aboard various methods of transportation; her conversation with celebrity blogger Perez Hilton happened aboard a party bus, for example, and she talked to "Saturday Night Live" vet Rachel Dratch on a ferry.

Speaking with Vice about the show, Raphael said she was happy to sign on to any show that people wanted her to be a part of. "It's a working-class thing. Do whatever they're buying," she explained. "[N]ot very glamorous, but that's the way it is." Lest you think that means she wasn't excited about this series, Raphael also clarified that she appreciated the support of her queer fans. "[M]aybe [gays related to] me being a minority when I did my shows," she guessed. "I was the only woman on the air, on radio, on station after station. That's rejection. That's having a hard time — gays have always had a hard time."

Even though "Sally Jessy Rides" only lasted one season, fans never forgot about Sally Jessy Raphael. In 2017, she reemerged once again for a "Where Are They Now?" segment on "Today," ditching her trademark red hair in favor of shoulder-length brown locks for once.

Still, Raphael sported her iconic red-rimmed glasses, and that's what she was there to discuss. Talking to Matt Lauer — speaking of talk show hosts you don't hear much from anymore — Raphael revealed the origin story of the look that would become her trademark. Apparently, she initially picked those glasses because they came free with her insurance. "They were offering me a Pap smear and an eye test and red glasses," Raphael joked. "And I said, 'I'll take the red glasses.'"

At first, they were a controversial choice; local television producers didn't like that they were syndicating a show on which a woman wore such things. "That's how brilliant station managers are," Raphael joked. "[Producers] had my husband buy three pair of the ugliest glasses you could imagine. I put them on one, two, three. The boss said, 'Red, that's much better.'" From then on, red glasses it was.

Sally Jessy Raphael married Karl Soderlund all the way back in 1962, and they were together all the way up until Soderlund's unfortunate death in 2020. He died from complications associated with Alzheimer's disease, and Raphael stuck with him until the end. Sources who spoke with the Daily Mail described the couple's relationship in extremely loving terms. "They had a wonderful 57 years together and literally never spent a day apart," the source said. "Sally is asking for privacy during this difficult time as she mourns her beloved husband."

Soderlund, the source said, was a strong supporter of his wife for as long as they were together. "Karl produced all 30 years of Sally's radio show and all of the TV shows she fronted in Puerto Rico and Miami," they explained. Raphael, too, credited her husband with her success, referring to him as "the architect of the career which made [me] a global household name." Like Raphael, Soderlund loved the outdoors. "He was a kind man who was an avid cyclist, sailor, and fly fisherman," the source remembered. "In fact, Sally introduced him to fly fishing, and they enjoyed doing it together."

Raphael had just celebrated her husband's 90th birthday with him several months before his death. Gushing about her man on X, she wrote, "When I married Karl, he was 5 years my senior. Somehow, over 60 years, my Peter Pan husband has remained forever young and handsome!"

Five years after Sally Jessy Raphael lost her husband shortly after he celebrated his 90th birthday, Raphael caught up to him. She turned 90 in 2025, and ever the world traveler, she jetted off to Paris to celebrate with some friends. "We went to Paris, my favorite city. And I went to my old haunts. I won't tell you what they are because then they'd be everybody's old haunts," she joked to People.

Raphael noted that she'd taken two female friends with her, but also finds Paris very romantic. "I should have gone with a man," she said, clarifying that she actually had one she could have taken with her. "I've settled on somebody," she said, pontificating about the fact that people don't often think about people in their 90s as still having sex. "When you're a 90 woman to a 70 man, then you're not a cougar. You're a lion, I guess," she said, and we might just have to call that bragging. Okay, Ms. Raphael!

Whereas many stars slip out of the public eye as they age, Raphael insisted that she was embracing her status. "You're cute when you're young, and then for a long time, you're not cute. And then when you get to be 80 or 90, you're cute again," she explained. "People always say, 'That cute old lady,' so I guess I'm cute again."

Though you're not likely to catch Sally Jessy Raphael hosting a television show again anytime soon, she's still very accessible to her fans thanks to the wonders of social media. On her Instagram account @thesallyjessy, the former talk show host gives her viewers frequent updates about her still-exciting life. Referring to her followers as "Raphaelites" — perhaps a cheeky joke about the Pre-Raphaelites, a 19th-century movement that prioritized art made before the time of Raphael — the red-haired wonder posts throwbacks, selfies, photos with friends, and more.

She also seems quite up to date on the latest internet slang. In the caption of one Instagram post that depicted her sitting on the deck of a boat, Raphael wrote, "I'm serving you sailboat vibes." Sharing a snap of herself slurping down some oysters, she wrote, "[A]ren't these supposed to be an aphrodisiac?!" alongside a winky-face emoji.

"[Social media is] a way of keeping in touch with people that I care about," she explained to People. "When you're 90, you do have certain privileges. People tend to listen to you a bit more."

In her 90 years, Sally Jessy Raphael has seen a lot, and that experience gives her a unique ability to comment on the way the entertainment industry has changed over her lifetime. She did just that in 2025, speaking to People about the changes in the landscape that she's witnessed in her day. "Most women in the '50s were stay-at-home moms. And so a working woman was either single or interesting. It was difficult. It was an all-male world," she recalled. "They got paid much more than I ever got paid, and you never met another woman."

Raphael had three children, two from her short-lived first marriage and one from her second, with her dearly departed Karl Soderlund. "Thank heaven I had a husband who didn't mind being a house husband way back then," she said, "and he looked after the children."

Nowadays, Raphael reflected that she no longer has to be as image-conscious as she used to be. "You don't care what you wear. You can wear anything," she mused about aging. "You don't care what you say. You can say anything." In fact, that's her biggest tip for aging as well as she has. "Not caring about people and what they think," she advised, "is the best thing for getting older."

In August 2025, Sally Jessy Raphael delighted the internet with a wonderfully silly interview in The Strategist. The interview, headlined "What Sally Jessy Raphael Can't Live Without," was meant to provide people with a list of products that the former talk show host still uses off the air. Instead, it turned into a delightful portrait of a woman who has figured out what works for her in this life, no matter what people might think about it.

For example, Raphael said she keeps a gallon of soy sauce around at all times, which she uses on just about everything. "I'll bet you didn't know that you can put a few drops of it on vanilla ice cream and it gives a fabulous taste," she said. "I'm probably the only non-Asian with a gallon of soy sauce in my closet." She also keeps bleach nearby at all times, explaining, "I also have long red hair that gets stuck in the drain of the sink. Some people use Drano or something like that. I just use Clorox, and the drain opens up and eats all the red hair stuck in there."

Claiming that she tapes up her feet with masking tape, even using it as a bandage, Raphael explained, "I use it for so much. I use it as a bookmark; I use it to hold my bra in shape." She said she can't live without a black Sharpie, either, explaining, "I use it for the television when it looks like the pixel is worn out." Sally Jessy Raphael at 90, ladies and gentlemen: as inventive as ever.