Sally Jessy Raphael Says She ‘Never Would Have Left’ Her Show but Was Fired for Minuscule Ratings Drop (Exclusive)

Sally Jessy Raphael’s last show in April 2002. Photo:Jim Lord/Getty

Sally Jessy Raphael never had a desire to leave daytime.

The beloved former host of Sally tells PEOPLE exclusively that she knows she had “a darn good show” on her hands once she got her foot in the door, which was thanks to another daytime juggernaut, the late Phil Donahue.

“He heard me on All Night Radio when he was driving with his wife in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He said, ‘We ought to have a woman who does what I do. And this woman can do it,’ so he told the company. So they hired me, and that was very nice,” Raphael, 90, recalls.

“They didn’t pay me much. We were only on stations they owned out of St. Louis in the beginning. But then it grew and I think it grew because it was a darn good show. As it grew, other people bought it. And the more people you work for, the worse it becomes.”

As her show changed hands over the years, dynamics grew complicated. The push for “ratings, ratings, ratings,” was relentless, yubi, she says. The topics they thought the Sally audience craved were topics Raphael felt were “kind of junk.”

Sally Jessy Raphael in 1991.Ron Galella/getty

“The show deteriorated and there was a point at which I couldn’t stand it anymore. I kept hoping for something that wasn’t like that, but [we were up against] Jerry and  Maury, and they were really succeeding,” she says of fellow daytime TV titans Springer and Povich.

Raphael explains that it wasn’t even a huge fall from grace that led to the show’s end in 2002.

“When we went off the air, they fired me. I never left the show where there was money. They fired me at a 4.8,” she explains of the ratings.

“Anybody today in the morning slots, 10 and 11, would give their right eye for a 4.8. But they said, ‘Oh, it’s going down. It went from a 4.9 to a 4.8,’ ” she continued.

“And I said, ‘Geez.’ And so they fired me. I wouldn’t have left the job no matter how lousy it was.”

Sally Jessy Raphael in 2013. Ilya S. Savenok/Getty

Despite being off the air for more than two decades, the Sally show family is still very much that — a family.

“Surprisingly, I think we’re the only show that has a reunion every year. I know of no other show that’s been off this long that has a reunion every year,” Raphael says.

“I also text and get texts from a great many of the people, of whom there were 250. It was like running a company. There were 250 employees including crew. And I stay in touch with almost all of them,” she proudly shares. “A lot of them come and visit me whenever they’re near New York or in New York. They come and see me and tell me what’s going on in their lives. So it was a family and it still remains a family.”