What Suzanne Somers Really Thought Of Donald Trump

Broadly speaking, the majority of Hollywood leans towards progressive, liberal causes when it comes to politics. A number of big-time celebs have lent their cachet to Democratic candidates for president in recent elections. Elizabeth Banks spoke at the Democratic National Convention in 2016 in support of Hillary Clinton; Tom Hanks helped raise $750,000 in one day for Joe Biden in 2020; and even Taylor Swift, who had kept her political beliefs relatively quiet in past presidential elections, came out to publicly support Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in 2020.

But that doesn't mean that every Hollywood celeb automatically votes blue and supports Democratic politicians. When it comes to Suzanne Somers, who sadly passed away in October 2023, she was a fan of President Donald Trump. When the TV legend, perhaps best known for her time on "Three's Company" and "Step by Step," was asked by TMZ in 2018 what she thought about Trump's first year in office in the midst of a government shutdown, she said, "I'm happy about him. I'm happy that the economy is doing so much better."

Suzanne Somers' TMZ interviewer said it was rare to find someone in Los Angeles who is publicly supportive of Donald Trump, and Alan Hamel, Suzanne Somers' husband and business partner, agreed. Somers laughed, and she joked about how telling people that she liked Trump would mean an end to her career. Somers' film and TV jobs weren't very frequent in the years before her support for Trump — one of her most recent TV appearances was in 2015 on "Dancing With the Stars." But she was also a promoter and co-owner of the ThighMaster, the fitness product that was perhaps most popular in the 1990s but is still available today, and she launched an organic beauty and skincare line. Her support for Trump doesn't seem to have shuttered either of those businesses.

While Somers may have been happy with what Trump was doing as president, that doesn't mean that she always voted Republican. In 2012, Somers told HuffPost that, "My politics are very personal: I am an independent and vote the candidate, never the party."

Suzanne Somers wouldn't be the first person in Hollywood to say that supporting Donald Trump has the potential to tank a Hollywood career. Antonio Sabato Jr. told Variety that after the 2016 election, "I was blacklisted." And during a 2021 appearance on "Tucker Carlson Today," Kirstie Alley said she realized how bad it was for her in Hollywood to reveal she was a Trump supporter.

The Trump presidency wasn't the only time that Somers noted that it could be a bad decision to speak out in Hollywood if your political leanings and opinions didn't match your peers. In 2014, when Barack Obama was president, Somers spoke on Fox Business (as reported by Fox News) about how being political could cause problems: "This has been the most divisive of all the administrations that I've ever experienced in my lifetime. And it's become divisive in the industry that if you're not part of the group, you should probably keep your thoughts to yourself." The Trump presidency hasn't made things less divisive, but Somers seemed to have taken it in stride that her political opinions didn't align with some others in the entertainment business.

According to conservative political commentator Joseph diGenova, who served as U.S. Attorney of the District of Columbia in the '80s, Suzanne Somers' pro-Trump sentiments didn't come without a price. During a WMAL radio interview, diGenova explained that he and his wife had become close with Somers and her husband Alan Hamel after being introduced by mutual friends.

"We became close friends because they were really conservative politically," diGenova shared, noting that she was a strong advocate of parental rights. "She was a fabulous human being and she had the equally great benefit of being a great conservative." While Somers may not have lost her career over her political beliefs, she allegedly did lose friends, with the lawyer adding that her long-time buddy Barry Manilow actually severed ties with Somers due to their ideological differences.

Despite this claim, Manilow shared a tribute to Somers on social media, noting that they had been friends for decades. While it's unclear if political differences really divided the two, Somers certainly seemed to have courted some conservative friends over the years, with figures like former Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Monica Crowley, Fox commentator Tammy Bruce, and even Donald Trump himself posting tributes to the sitcom icon.