Fans of self-help books, 20th-century sitcoms, and thighs so toned you could crush a honeydew with them mourned the loss of Suzanne Somers this week, as news of the performer’s sudden passing one day before her 77th birthday – which she was very excited to celebrate with her family – hit the public at large.
At the time of her passing, Celebrity Net Worth estimated Somers’ personal holdings to be somewhere in the ballpark of $100 million – a spectacular sum for anyone, let alone a TV actor who’d been largely left behind by the industry.
The bulk of Somers’ wealth, by their estimates, didn’t come from television or movie appearances. It was the result of Somers’ work as the face of the ThighMaster, the exercise accessory that you couldn’t avoid if you lived through the ‘90s. Per Somers’ own recollection, she turned the product into a wildly lucrative opportunity when her business partners made some bad calls, opening the door for her to buy them out of the company. She and her husband, Alan Hamel, owned 100 percent of the ThighMaster brand – a business with some $300 million in sales under its belt – at the time of her death. Additional income stemmed from the actress’s bevy of controversial self help and wellness books.
Somers’ financials have been a point of public fascination for years, given the TV star’s infamous exit from Three’s Company following the studio’s refusal to raise her pay from $30,000 to $150,000 per episode. Nice to know that, through the power of springy leg exercisers, it all came out in the wash.