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Susan Powter lost her multi-million dollar fitness empire due to financial mismanagement.
The ’90s fitness guru said she started relying on GrubHub and Uber Eats food delivery to make a living.
“I know despair,” Powter told People magazine. “When I walk back from the welfare office, I feel a sense of despair. It’s a shock of, ‘How in the name of God did I go from there to now here?'”
Powter, 66, lives in a low-income senior community and receives free meals twice a week, the paper said.
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Fitness guru Susan Powter attends the 5th Annual Walk for Babies with AIDS at Roxbury Park in Beverly Hills, California on November 12, 1995 (Getty Images/Getty Images)
In the ’90s, Powter sold a fitness program called “Stop the Insanity!” $79.80.
The program included audio cassettes, recipes and other tips for weight loss. Powter declared bankruptcy in 1995 after selling $50 million a year in products.
At the time, she still had money, but she didn’t know it was being mismanaged.
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“Someone else was handling it. I never checked the balance,” Powter told the outlet. “I should have asked the question, which I fully admit, and I made a mistake.
“I knew how much control I was giving up,” she added. “I didn’t know where or what I was being paid, but I had no assets and no funds to leave for my children.
“I never thought I’d never have another book or a video published. I never didn’t work. I never thought I’d never be able to make a living. But as a 60-year-old woman, I found a job. Please try your best.” ”
Susan Powter says she gets “desperate” when it comes to financial troubles. (Getty Images/Getty Images)
By 2018, Powter’s life had become “very scary.” She started driving for Uber Eats and GrubHub, hoping to earn at least $80 a day to pay her bills and rent.
“It’s very difficult. It’s terrifying and shocking,” she told People. “If grief could kill you, I would be dead.”
Although Powter was experiencing financial difficulties, he kept it a secret from his family. But she wrote about it in her book, And Then Em Died…Stop the Madness! A Memoir.
“My sons read my book and said, ‘Mom, we didn’t know.'”
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Before financial ruin, Ms. Powter had a syndicated television show.
The show was “complete crap,” she said. “They put me inside the pearl. They created ‘me’ out of me. Those parts can’t even be seen now.”
She eventually stepped away from her fitness empire.
“I was teaching classes in elementary school basements, photographing underwater home births, driving my little Volkswagen Bug with my baby, and just being a mom,” she said. “I’m a very basic hippie kind of girl.”
Powter started driving for Uber Eats and Grubhub in 2018 after he said his life became “very scary.” (Getty Images/Getty Images)
Powter experienced a health scare in 2023 that led her to apply for Social Security benefits.
“That $1,500 check shocked me to the core,” she told People. “It was a lie when I said money couldn’t buy happiness. A liar. It wasn’t happiness. It was more than happiness. I took a deep breath. And this was just ‘I used to have millions, but… It’s not like, ‘I don’t have it now.'” This is a real story that many women experience. ”
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She began saving money “relentlessly.”
“I don’t spend any money. I don’t go anywhere. I don’t eat out,” she explained. “These are the sweatpants I always wear. They’re $7 on Amazon.”
