Jaclyn Smith has disclosed that her late Charlie’s Angels co-star Tanya Roberts and Roberts’s husband, Barry, once asked her to join them for a threesome, a revelation included in the actor’s new memoir, I Once Knew a Guy Named Charlie.
A candid confession from the set
Smith, 80, says the couple approached her while they were travelling to Hawaii to work on Charlie’s Angels. She declined the invitation, but says she admired Roberts’s openness about her sexuality.
According to Smith, Roberts and her husband were in an open marriage. Writing about the episode, she says Roberts “wasn’t shy about it in the least, or about propositioning people to ‘swing’ with them.”
Smith’s account offers another glimpse into the often surprising world behind one of television’s most recognisable series. It also adds a new layer to the public memory of Roberts, who played Julie Rogers during the fifth and final season of the programme.
Roberts, who died in 2021, joined the cast after Shelley Hack, who had herself replaced Kate Jackson. Barry Roberts died in 2006.
Smith has said she viewed her former co-star’s candour as “brave and self-aware,” even as she made clear that she was not interested in taking part.
The glamour and the chaos behind the Angels
The memoir arrives as Charlie’s Angels marks its 50th anniversary, a milestone that has prompted fresh attention to the show’s cultural legacy and the experiences of the women who made it famous.
Smith was part of the original line-up when the detective series launched in 1976, playing Kelly Garrett alongside Jackson and Farrah Fawcett. The trio quickly became one of television’s best-known ensembles, blending action, glamour and a format that would be copied, parodied and reimagined for decades.
“We were just three girls hoping to find an audience, and boy, did we find an audience,” Smith told People.
Yet the memoir also describes a less polished side of life on set. Smith writes that cocaine use became increasingly visible as the series continued, prompting her to spend more time away from the action in her motor home.
“The more drug use I saw, the more time I spent in my motor home,” she writes. “I was in there a lot by the end of the series.”
Smith says the experience convinced her never to take cocaine. “I’ve watched that drug, in particular, turn people into the worst version of themselves,” she said.
Still signing autographs after 50 years
Despite the passage of time, Smith says the public’s affection for the programme remains unmistakable. She told People that fans continue to send her Charlie’s Angels photographs to sign every day.
“People still send Charlie’s Angels pictures for me to sign every day,” she said. “Who would have dreamed the afterlife of Charlie’s Angels would be like this?”
The series has endured through reruns, DVDs and later film adaptations, including the feature films starring Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu. Its influence can still be seen in pop culture, from fashion references to action comedies built around charismatic female leads.
Earlier this year, Smith reunited with Jackson and Cheryl Ladd at PaleyFest LA 2026. Fawcett, another member of the original cast, died in 2009 at the age of 62.
During the festival discussion, Jackson credited the show’s lasting appeal to the bond between its stars. “It was unusual. The three of us had chemistry that was … I mean, we’re still sisters today and you people are all so crazy that you’re still around after 50 years. I can’t believe it.”
Jackson also recalled knowing almost immediately that the programme would succeed. “We started shooting the pilot, and I never doubted. I don’t know why, but I never doubted that it was going to be a big hit. It was unique.”
A legacy built on more than nostalgia
Smith’s memoir is likely to be read as both a personal memoir and a behind-the-scenes portrait of a television phenomenon. Its most headline-grabbing passages concern Roberts and the couple’s invitation, but the book also reflects on fame, friendship, boundaries and the pressures that accompanied the show’s enormous popularity.
That combination helps explain why Charlie’s Angels continues to generate interest half a century after its debut. The series was not only a hit in its own era; it became a template for rethinking how women could be presented on screen, even as later generations debated the limits of that representation.
Smith’s account adds complexity to the nostalgia. The Angels may have appeared effortlessly cool to viewers, but the people behind the camera were navigating a fast-moving industry, intense public scrutiny and personal choices that were not always reflected in the polished image sold to audiences.
Why it Matters
Smith’s disclosure matters because it reminds us that cultural icons are made by real people with complicated lives, not just by memorable characters and glossy publicity stills. Her memoir adds another chapter to the story of Charlie’s Angels, showing how a series that reshaped television continues to reveal new details about the women who starred in it and the world that surrounded them.
