Speaking to PEOPLE magazine, the 90-year-old retired talk show legend opened up about carving out her path in journalism and Hollywood, all while raising her three children. For those who don’t know, Sally shares daughters Allison and Andrea Vladimir with her first husband, Andrew Vladimir, and her son Jason Soderlund with her second husband, Karl Soderlund.
Looking back on those early days, Sally didn’t sugarcoat just how tough it was. “Well, there weren’t many of us,” she said honestly. “Most women in the 50s were stay-at-home mums. And so a working woman was either single or interesting. It was difficult. It was an all-male world.”
It wasn’t just about the lack of company, either — it was about the pay gap too. Sally added, “They got paid much more than I ever got paid, and you never met another woman,” referring to her male colleagues who dominated the industry back then.
She also shared how rare it was to even see another woman in broadcasting at the time. “There just weren’t women out there. Even in Puerto Rico, I was the only woman doing radio and television. I was the morning woman, but I didn’t think of myself as a woman. I just thought of getting a job and earning some money. So that’s the way [I did it],” she explained.
Sally’s story is a powerful reminder of just how different the world was for working women not so long ago. While today’s media landscape looks a lot different, it’s women like Sally Jessy Raphael who helped break down those walls, even if they had to do it the hard way, with little recognition and even less support.
Through her honesty, Sally is showing a whole new generation what resilience really looked like when just having a job as a woman was seen as remarkable — and how she managed to do it all while being a mum too.