Why does Sally Jessy Raphael lie about her ethnicity?

That woman is a saint (to me).

Who on earth watches Sally Jessy Raphael videos?

I do r2. Next….

Is that Bruce Vilanch?

Uhhh, she could be both.

[quote] She used to do this on her talk show claiming to be Puerto Rican.

I recall there was an episode of her show which had a topic regarding the then new-found popularity of big butts. She said something like, when referring to Latin cultures, "I understand that is considered an erogenous part of the body in their culture", so she wasn't claiming to be Puerto Rican then.

Send Sally to booty camp!

Wow pushing 90 yrs old!

Are she and Geraldo Rivera the same person?

She also took a couple of years off her age. She's pushing 91.

I know a Puerto Rican Jew, so it is possible.

I did, too. She came from a whole enclave of Jews in PR.

Where’s my damned furniture?!!

Because she's Black!

Yeah. Why can't she identify as Puerto Rican while Kamala can identify with whatever she wants?

Up ya nose with a rubba hose OP!

Rachel Ticotin once said "My mother's Puerto Rican and my father's Russian-Jewish so we consider ourselves to be Jewricans or Puertojews. I think Puertojew sounds like a kosher bathroom, so I prefer Jewrican."

Sally Jessy is not Puerto Rican, though, which is easy to establish via her public records and those of her parents.

NPR had a series on people researching their genealogy in Mexico and finding out their extended family originated in Spain.

The. tombs with Stars of David were the first clue. Another clue: every house in the family had two refrigerators and two stoves.

Sarah Lowenthal

Sally is NOT Puerto Rican. There were multiple times on her show where she claimed to be Puerto Rican. One of them including a slur a girl used and she said, “You’re being derogatory to Puerto Ricans, what do you think I am?!” She’s basically Hilaria Baldwin. Completely full of shit and embarrassed about being a Jew.

[quote]Sally Jessy Raphael, (born Sally Lowenthal) was born on February 25, 1935 in Easton, Pennsylvania. Her grandparents were all Jewish emigrant: her paternal grandparents from Poland and Russia, and her maternal grandparents from Lithuania and Russia.

Who cares about her ethnicity, that wig is atrocious!

I’m gonna guess actually Samoan, considering the video evidence that she’s been giving in a lot to a predisposition for feasting on lots of taro root and roasted pork since her talkshow folded (?).

Taco-flavored knishes

Wow. That is strange. Her fame was always mystifying.

I used to listen to her radio show every night when I was in high school (cue Matt Damon) and for the life of me I can’t tell you why. It was mind-numbingly dumb.

When she sings “Oye Como Va” she sounds like my great aunt Rhoda on the Oye.

[Quote] Her fame was always mystifying.

I KNOW RIGHT?

She attended and graduated from Easton Area High School in Easton. She also spent time in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where her father, Jesse Lowenthal, was in the rum exporting business and her mother, Zelda Lowenthal (aka Dede Lowry), ran an art gallery. She has a younger brother, Steven Lowenthal.[3]

She spent some of her teenage years in Scarsdale, New York, where one of her first media jobs was at the local AM radio station, WFAS. The station had a program by and for junior high school students and Raphael read the news.

**She attended Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and the University of Puerto Rico in San Juan**

Raphael studied acting under the tutelage of Sanford Meisner at New York City’s Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre.[4]

She took her mother's maiden name of Raphael as her professional name and plucked the theatrical surname of Jessy from her father's family.[5]

r23 you win this thread.

So, according to r28, she's Hilaria Baldwin before Hilaria was even born!

And according to R20 as well.

“I always knew her as white. Then one day she became Puerto Rican. As an old, white bigot I own your identity and this is an outrage!”

How you say "judia que odia a si misma"?

I deeply worry about Sally jesse Raphael's ethnicity. It matters so much to my daily life.

Great. Then it’s good that you found this thread rather than the Marilyn Monroe statue one or the cruises—-trashy or classy? one.

Maybe she was trying to compete with fellow talk show host Geraldo Rivera who is both Puerto Rican and Jewish and doesn’t know how to let it go.

r25 Sally had a radio show? It must not have aired in the Seattle market or points north (I'm British Columbian) because this is the first time I've heard of it. Was it similar to her talk show?

R36. Indeed there was. And believe me it was scintillating.

R35 Sally Jessy didn’t have access to that safe tho!

Puerto Rican isn’t an ethnicity dumbass.

Tell that to JLo, r9

I got goosebumps when she trilled the r in “Rafaela”.

[quote] She took her mother's maiden name of Raphael as her professional name and plucked the theatrical surname of Jessy from her father's family.

But her mother’s maiden name wasn’t Raphael.

There’s something off with her. The interview also has her saying that she would bring her kids to the radio station with bullet holes in it and have them sleep outside. They also lived in a house where they slept in sleeping bags.

[quote] Puerto Rican isn’t an ethnicity dumbass.

“Puerto Ricans are an ethnic group and nation that are native to Puerto Rico and the Caribbean archipelago.”

How strange. She looked like every Puerto Rican woman I grew up with!

[quote] Sally had a radio show? It must not have aired in the Seattle market or points north (I'm British Columbian) because this is the first time I've heard of it. Was it similar to her talk show?

According to her, she played 110% of the US (she played simultaneously on two stations in the same area). Her show aired the entire US. She had her tv show before Oprah wasn’t ever a thing in 1983 too.

Here’s the entire 3 hour interview. She has a quilt made by gays from the 19th century.

[quote] According to her, she played 110% of the US (she played simultaneously on two stations in the same area).

And she bored 150% of the country out of their wits.

[quote]But her mother’s maiden name wasn’t Raphael.

She had a maternal great-grandfather who went by Raphael Jaffe. He and his parents, Abraham and Etta, were not Puerto Rican, as R20 covered.

Sally's father was a rum importer and her family spent some time in PR when she was a kid. Her fondness for the region is genuine, unlike her ethnic reinvention. The Hilaria Baldwin comparisons are apt, though Sally knew not to push it that far.

OP- She’s turned into Bruce Villanch’s sister .

R39- True. I was on a gay cruise in South America only 700 people on the ship- small ship for a gay cruise. Anyway we were on an excursion one day and there was a gay couple from Puerto Rico on the tour. Basically they were white Puerto Ricans. They looked like they could be from Spain. One of them had dirty blond hair.

R35- Juan Epstein was Puerto Rican and Jewish too.

Probably because Jew is not an ethnicity.