Suzanne Somers rose to fame as Chrissy Snow on ABC’s smash television sitcom “Three’s Company.” Unfortunately for the actress, she didn’t survive long on the show, as she was fired just as her career was taking off.

Three’s Company premiered in 1980, introducing the world to John Ritter’s comic skills while also providing us with a theme tune that is guaranteed to be stuck in your brain. Somers’ character, the airheaded “blonde bimbo” who shared an apartment with Janet (Joyce DeWitt) and Ritter’s beautifully named Jack Tripper, was probably never supposed to be so well-loved. But, in the early seasons of Three’s Company, Somers’ warm performance and excellent comedic timing — not to mention her bombshell looks — made her a household name, so fans were perplexed when Chrissy’s role was drastically reduced during the fifth season — and then completely eliminated for the final three seasons of the show’s eight-season run.

The 73-year-old actress and entrepreneur was sacked when she requested a compensation increase from $30,000 to $150,000 each episode, which would put her on pace with her male costar, John Ritter.

Suzanne Somers and husband Alan Hamel | CREDIT: CINDY ORD/GETTY

“The show’s response was, ‘Who do you think you are?’ ” Somers tells PEOPLE. “They said, ‘John Ritter is the star.’ ”

Former TV producer Alan Hamel, the actress’s 42-year-old husband, echoed his wife’s assertions, claiming that ABC had used her as an example to other women who felt they could make demands like their male counterparts.

“Laverne & Shirley had just negotiated a monster deal, and afterwards, they decided they needed to make an example of female actresses so that no other woman would ask to be paid what men were making. And then [Suzanne] was fired,” he says.

He went on to say, “It worked because for years, no woman asked to be paid what men were making, until Roseanne [Barr]. But Suzanne was the first feminist to ask to be paid what the men were making.”

Alan’s public support for his wife came as no surprise to fans, as the couple has remained a force to be reckoned with in terms of relationships.

In a subsequent interview with Good Housekeeping, Somers concurred with that judgment, adding, “They couldn’t have done it today, but that was the climate back then.” Indeed, in the decade or so after the public spat, there appeared to be some progress in terms of pay parity: Roseanne Barr’s eponymous ’90s sitcom made her the second-highest paid woman in entertainment, behind only Oprah Winfrey, by late in that decade, and the female stars of mega-hits Seinfeld and Friends both drew checks on par with their male co-stars.

Somers felt unmoored after being dismissed. “I would have probably never left a network series,” she admits. “I would have kept on going and probably been in every sitcom after that were it not to end the way it ended. But I was ostracized. So I went away.”

Somers began her career as a performer in Las Vegas and went on to build a fitness and skincare business, which she currently co-owns with Hamel. “The great thing about being fired was that,” says Somers, whose new book, A New Way to Age, is out. “I would have never been able to do what I do now.”

In the end, she says, “life is a roller coaster.” “When it’s high, everything is groovy and everything is great and we’ve had so many highs. The lows aren’t as much fun, but that’s when you learn.”

“All careers hit walls,” Somers continues. “But I reinvent myself. And I keep going.”