Ricki Lake Reveals What Made Her Quit Her Popular '90s Talk Show
Ricki Lake Reveals What Made Her Quit Her Popular '90s Talk Show
Gillian TellingTue, April 28, 2026 at 7:55 PM UTC
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Ricki Lake on Watch What Happens Live in 2026Credit: Charles Sykes/Bravo via Getty -
Ricki Lake was on Maury Povich's podcast, talking about her popular '90s daytime talk show
She explained the moment she knew she wanted to leave the show and New York altogether
She also says it was when she realized she wanted to leave her first marriage
Ricki Lake is opening up about the real reason she finally quit her daytime talk show, Ricki Lake, which ran from 1993-2004.
On the On Par with Maury Povich podcast, the actress and producer explained that it was witnessing the events on 9/11 that caused her to want to leave New York altogether, which meant quitting the show.
"I could have done it for probably a decade longer," Lake, 57, said to Povich, 87, who noted that both of them had left their respective shows when they were "on top" of the ratings.
"I made that choice," she continued. "9/11 was a huge trajectory shift in my life. Every aspect of my life changed from witnessing that experience that day from my West Village apartment."
Lake, who was 33 at the time, said that as she watched 9/11 unfold from the roof of her building in 2001, she realized she wanted a massive life shift.
Ricki Lake in front of the studio audience on the set of her talk show.Credit: Budd Williams/NY Daily News Archive via Getty
"I was so freaked out watching that plane fly down the Hudson and hit that building. I had a 2 month old and a 4 year old. So I was a lactating new mother protecting my cubs, you know? I mean, I just felt like the world was coming to an end that day. And I said to myself — I had an epiphany on the roof of my building as I watched it all unfold — that I would leave New York," she said.
She added that she also realized there were other life changes she wanted to make.
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"I would leave my job and I would ultimately leave my marriage. And it took a lot of planning. It took a couple years to finish my contract. I couldn't [immediately] walk away from my show, but I knew I wasn't going to renew beyond the term that I had agreed to."
When the show ended, Lake, who first rose to fame for her turn as Tracy Turnblad in the 1988 film Hairspray, moved to the West Coast and began producing documentaries like The Business of Being Born and being more "behind the scenes."
She and her husband Rob Sussman separated in 2003, finalizing their divorce a year later. Despite the inner turmoil she experienced during the last couple of years hosting the show, she says she knows it was a force for good while it was still airing.
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Ricki Lake with husband Rob Sussman at PETA's 21st. Anniversary Party and Humanitarian Awards at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. 9/8/2001Credit: Evan Agostini/Getty
"The show was a phenomenon and I think we did so much good for young people to get conversations going, for people who were marginalized and not represented, be seen on television," she said. "I mean, I think there's a lot of good that came out of our show."
In an earlier part of the interview, Povich opened up about how Lake's arrival to daytime TV "scared the s--- out of the rest" of the genre's hosts.
"I mean, there were 20 of us on the air and most of us were in our 40s and 50s and maybe even older," Povich told Lake. "And here comes this 23-year-old who gets the youngest audience of us all. And we were scared s---less!"
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