Suzanne Somers’ “Step by Step” TV husband, Patrick Duffy, has broken his silence following her death at age 76.
“As with everyone who knew her, I was stunned yesterday by the news that my dear and deep friend Suzanne had passed,” Duffy, 74, told People in a statement on Monday. “For that brief moment it was unbelievable. But indeed she has passed.”
“She beautifully passed through my life on this leg of her endless journey,” continued Duffy. “My task now is to remain on the roadside as she continues on.”
The “Dallas” alum noted that he will miss several things about Somers, including “the phone calls, the emails, the visits, and the meals and laughter.”
“But the dialogue of deep and thoughtful, and silly and frivolous continues,” Duffy continued. “My conversations with her now will be held solely through my daily Buddhist practice.”
Duffy also acknowledged that he is “not alone in wishing” he had “one more face-to-face” with her and her husband, Alan Hamel.
“But had we had that meeting last Friday I would still be yearning for just one more today,” he said. “It is the painful beauty of our present human reality.”
He concluded: “What strength and support I can muster I send to Alan and [her son] Bruce and her family and to her I say; When the stone of your life dropped in this pond you made quite a ripple my friend. Thank you.”
Somers met Duffy in 1991 when they both starred in the hit ABC show “Step by Step” as parents of a blended family. The show aired for seven seasons until its 1998 finale.
In 2021, the actor told Entertainment Tonight that he considered Somers to be his “best friend.”
“She’s a mother above all else. She’s a caretaker,” he told the outlet at the time. “She’s just one of the best people. She’s a go-to person. If I ever needed something, I know I could pick up the phone and say, ‘Suzanne, I really need help on this.’ It would be there.”
Somers died just one day shy of her 77th birthday after battling breast cancer for more than 23 years.
“Suzanne Somers passed away peacefully at home in the early morning hours of October 15th. She survived an aggressive form of breast cancer for over 23 years,” R. Couri Hay, Somers’ longtime publicist, confirmed to Page Six. “Suzanne was surrounded by her loving husband Alan, her son Bruce, and her immediate family.”
A private family burial will take place this week, with a memorial to follow next month.
Sources close to the family told Page Six that Somers “died in her new ‘all green home’ in Palm Springs, in her sleep with her loving husband by her side.”
Hamel, 87, gifted his longtime love a handwritten poem wrapped in pink peonies, which had been her favorite flower, one day before her death.
“55 years together, 46 married and not even one hour apart for 42 of those years. Even that doesn’t do it,” he wrote in his letter, trying to define the word “love.”
“Even going to bed at 6 o’clock and holding hands while we sleep doesn’t do it. Staring at your beautiful face while you sleep doesn’t do it. I’m back to feelings. There are no words,” he concluded. “There are no actions. No promises. No declarations. Even the green shaded scholars of the Oxford University Press have spent 150 years and still have failed to come up with that one word. So I will call it, ‘Us,’ uniquely, magically, indescribably wonderful ‘Us.’”
