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Susan Powter She lost her multi-million dollar fitness empire when her finances were mismanaged.
The 90s fitness guru said she turned to delivering food for GrubHub and Uber Eats to make ends meet.
“I’ve known despair,” Powter told People magazine. “It’s desperation to come back from the welfare office. It’s a shock: who’s there, now I’m here? How in God’s name?”
Powter, 66, lives in a low-income senior living community and receives two free meals a week, according to the outlet.
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Fitness teacher Susan Powter attends the 5th Annual AIDS Care for Children on November 12, 1995, at Roxbury Park in Beverly Hills, California. (Getty Images/Getty Images)
In the 1990s, Powter sold her own fitness program called “Stop the madness!” For $79.80.
The program included audio tapes, recipes, and more Weight loss tips. After selling $50 million worth of products a year, Powter declared bankruptcy in 1995.
At that time, she still had money, but she didn’t know that the money was poorly managed.
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“There was someone else handling it. I never checked the balances,” Powter told the outlet. “I should have wondered. I fully admit it. I made a mistake.”
“I knew how much control I had given up,” she added. “I didn’t know where the payment was from, but I didn’t have any property. There was no money left for my children.
“I never thought there would ever be another book or video. I had never worked. I never thought I wouldn’t be able to make a living. But try to get a job as a 60-year-old woman.”
Susan Powter says she “feels hopeless” when it comes to financial problems. (Getty Images/Getty Images)
Powter’s life had become “scary as s—” by 2018. She started driving for Uber Eats and GrubHub, hoping to make at least $80 a day to pay bills and rent.
“It’s very difficult. It’s terribly traumatic,” she told People. “If sadness could kill you, you would be dead.”
Despite Powter’s financial problems, she kept them hidden from her family. However, she wrote about it in her book, “And Then Em Died…Stop the Madness! Memoir.”
“My kids read my book and said, ‘Mom, we didn’t know.’
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Before her financial collapse, Powter had a syndicated television show.
She said the show was “complete crap”. “They put me in pearls. They made an ‘I’ out of me. Those clips – I can’t even watch them now.”
She eventually stepped away from the fitness empire.
“I was teaching classes in the basement of an elementary school, photographing underwater home births, driving my little Volkswagen Bug with my baby, just being a mom,” she said. “I’m a very basic kind of hippie.”
Powter started driving for Uber Eats and GrubHub in 2018 after she said life became “scary as s—.” (Getty Images/Getty Images)
Powter suffered a health scare in 2023 that prompted her to claim Social Security.
“I was shocked by this $1,500 check,” she told People magazine. “Whoever said money can’t buy happiness lied. It wasn’t happiness. It was more than happiness. I took a deep breath. This isn’t just ‘You used to have millions and now you don’t’. This is a real story that a lot of women go through.”
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She began saving “obsessively.”
“I don’t spend any money. I don’t go anywhere. I don’t eat out,” she explained. “These are the sweatpants I wear all the time. Seven bucks on Amazon.”
. “Professional creator. Lifelong thinker. Reader. Beer buff. Troublemaker. Evil problem solver.”