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While building a successful career as a fitness guru in the ’90s, Susan Powter rose to fame as the face of Stop the Insanity! The host of the infomercial, “The Susan Powter Show,” and author of numerous diet and weight loss books, was secretly fighting her own battles behind the scenes.
“They started creating an ‘I’ out of me,” Ms. Powter, who is promoting her new book, “And Em Died…Stop the Madness! Memoir,” told People magazine.
“And that’s what happened when the money got here (hands held high). Then I was like, ‘Oh, Suze, don’t say that. No, no, that’s a little too much. Oh, I was like, “You are.” It’s shocking. ‘But it was the same shock that led me there.
“I worked really hard on[The Susan Powter Show]. We shot three shows in one day. I gave it everything I had,” she added. Ta. “But it was frustrating. They made me wear pearls. Look at me. Do I look like the pearl type? And I didn’t have any say in all that. segment, you can’t even watch it now.”
’90s fitness guru loses multi-million dollar empire, delivers food to Grahab and Uber Eats in ‘despair’
Susan Powter rose to fame as a fitness guru in the 1990s. (Getty Images)
Powter’s path to success began at one of the darkest times in her life. She was a 260-pound mother of two and in the middle of a bitter divorce.
The Australian native, who immigrated to the United States with her family when she was 10, told the Washington Post in 1994, “I was a scared, angry, isolated single mother. I was traumatized by having fat stuffed in my mouth.” I was dealing with it,” he said. “I gained 260 pounds. I’ve been yo-yoing all my life, but I’ve never been this obese. I had no energy, was depressed, and my ankle was blown out. I have to recover from this. I knew it had to happen.” The dead. ”
“I’m not kidding when I say I was going to blow your head off,” she said at a Broadcast Advertising Club luncheon at the Hyatt Regency Chicago that same year, according to the Chicago Tribune. “I’m not lying. I didn’t want to live anymore. My life was in the toilet.”
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It was at that point that Powter decided to take the reins.
Powter’s career began during one of the darkest periods of her life. She was a self-proclaimed 260-pound mother of two and in the middle of a bitter divorce. (Getty Images)
“I stood up and talked to the women,” she told People magazine. “That’s what I did with the infomercial. There was no rehearsal, no script. And the women responded to it.”
Through an infomercial, Powter offered a health package that combined a low-fat diet with an exercise regimen. The $79.80 package included five audio tapes, an exercise video, a recipe book, a guide to food fat content and a caliper to measure body fat, according to the Washington Post.
At the time, Powter was selling about 15,000 of these packages each week, generating revenue in the $5 million range, according to the paper.
Before she knew it, the fitness guru had made a name for herself and signed her first deal with a manager and investment partner in hopes of developing “an exercise studio and maybe a clothing line.” she told People.
Her career unexpectedly skyrocketed when she began appearing on the national daytime talk show “The Home Show” and received $2 million before the publication of her first book. According to People magazine, she once sold $50 million worth of products a year.
Powter’s career skyrocketed thanks to her infomercial “Stop The Insanity!” (Getty Images)
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“No one expected that,” she told the outlet.
Things seemed to be going well, but Powter said she gradually began to lose control of herself, her image and her business plans.
“I wasn’t running my own company. It was a 50-50 deal,” said Powter, who ultimately tried to separate himself from the business deals he had at the time. “In the ’90s, all you had was litigation.”
In 1995, Powter filed for bankruptcy.
“Yes, I had money, but I never had $300 million in my bank account,” she said. “I never earned the money I generated.”
Fitness icon Dennis Austin’s weight loss tips for the 66-year-old
The fitness guru filed for bankruptcy in 1995 and subsequently left Hollywood. (Getty Images)
Powter made the life-changing decision to leave Hollywood and live a simpler life with her three children in Seattle.
“I didn’t just decide to quit,” said Powter, who came out as a lesbian in 2004. “Half of my heart was trampled on.” Outside. “
Powter chose a “hippie” lifestyle and felt “very happy” for a while. However, she found herself in financial trouble.
“Try to get a job as a 60-year-old woman,” Powter said. She eventually moved to Las Vegas and has worked as a delivery driver for Grubhub and Uber Eats for the past six years.
“I know despair,” added Powter, who lives in a low-income senior community. “When I walk back from the welfare office, I feel a sense of despair. It’s a shock of, ‘How in God’s name did I get from there to now?'”
Despite losing hope, Powter’s faith was restored when actress Jamie Lee Curtis approached her with the idea of documenting her life story.
These days, Powter delivers through Grubhub and Uber Eats. (Getty Images)
Fitness icon Dennis Austin’s best advice to his daughter, a swimsuit model: “One body, one life. Cherish it.”
“It brought tears to my eyes,” Powter said of her first meeting with Curtis, who is executive producer of the upcoming documentary “Stop the Insanity: The Search for Susan Powter.” “And I said, ‘Thank you. Thank you for believing in me. I had lost faith. I had lost complete and absolute hope.'”
“As one of the world’s first true influencers at the beginning of what we now call the social media age, Susan Powter was brazenly brave and a wake-up call for us all,” Lee told People of -Told Powter. “Like so many women’s stories, Susan’s power and light were diminished, vilified, and ignored.”
Oscar winner Jamie Lee Curtis said, “Susan Powter was brazen and brave and a wake-up call for us all.” (Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images)
As she begins promoting her book, Powter said she is looking forward to reconnecting with people across the United States and is eager to continue building on her legacy.
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“Those women would hear my voice and think, ‘Oh my God, she hasn’t changed one bit,'” she said. “What I feel right now is the possibility of possibility. I haven’t felt it for days, days, months, years. I’ve lost hope, but now… I’ve never been more excited.”
