How many children does Susan Powter have? All about family as fitness icon recalls working at Uber Eats after bankruptcy

'90s fitness sensation, Susan Powter, known for her energetic infomercials and her "stop the insanity" catchphrase, to authoring multiple books and hosting her own talk show, The Susan Powter Show, now recounts how several lawsuits and a 1995 bankruptcy led to her financial collapse, leaving her running out of money in 2018 and working for Uber Eats.

Susan, a mother of three, married her first husband, Nic Villarreal, in 1982 and went on to welcome sons Kiel and Damien. The couple later divorced in 1988 after Villarreal was reportedly having an affair with another woman.

In 1989, she married musician Lincoln Apeland and separated six years later before adopting a third son, Gabriel and coming out as a lesbian, per US Weekly.

Susan, who went from 130 pounds to 260 pounds after turning to food to cope, eventually "decided to make a change," leading her into the fitness world and opening her own fitness studio in Dallas. Two years later, she partnered with Dallas publicity representative Rusty Robertson and launched the Stop The Insanity infomercial.

"I just got up and spoke to women. That's what I did in the infomercial. It was unrehearsed, unscripted. And those women responded," she told People magazine in 2024.

She further told the outlet that when she first made a business deal with her manager and an investor, "it was for an exercise studio and maybe a clothing line. That's it;" however, within a year she ended up appearing on The Home Show and was provided $2 million advance to write her first book, which "Nobody expected."

Her success was "the biggest relief as a single mother, because I was like, 'Sh**, I can make a living.' And I had a current husband who was a musician, who never worked in our marriage, and an ex-husband whom I was paying to take care of his children. So I was thrilled."

Apart from opening her own fitness studio and launching The Susan Powter Show in 1994, Susan authored multiple books, including 1993’s Stop the Insanity! and 1995's Food; however, she later realised that she "wasn't running my company; it was a 50/50 deal."

"They started to produce the 'me' out of me. And that happened when the money got to here [raising her hand up high]. Then it was like, 'Oh, Suze, don't say that. No, no. It's a little too much. Oh, you're shocking. Shocking.' But that's the same shock that got me there," she added.

"It was mortifying": Susan Powter on working on The Susan Powter Show

Furthermore, in the interview with the outlet, Susan Powter shared that her business partners' control over her career became obvious once she began shooting for The Susan Powter Show in 1994.

"I worked very hard on that show. Shooting three shows a day. I did it with everything I had. But it was mortifying. They put me in pearls. Look at me — do I look like the pearl type? And I didn't have any say. All those segments, I can't even watch them now."

As she tried to get out of the contract and tried to renegotiate her business partnership, Susan explained that "there was nothing but lawsuits in the '90s. Yes, there was money, but I never had $300 million in the bank account. I never made the money that I generated."

The 67-year-old ultimately declared bankruptcy in 1995 and relocated to Seattle with her adopted son, where she was living a "hippie" life by renting a cabin, teaching cooking and taking fitness classes, which made her "happy."

"I didn't just make a decision to leave. My heart got stomped in half. It was shocking. I was furious. And I was just like, I'm just out."

However, she ran out of money in 2018 and was forced to live in a notoriously dangerous complex in Las Vegas. She began delivering for Grubhub and Uber Eats, and continues to do so, she told Today in a recent interview, published on November 18.

"I want to be able to do what I’ve done once before, which was miraculous in and of itself. And this time it would be properly managed. ... I want to do my work, and I want to have a chance," she told Today.

Susan Powter's documentary, Stop the Insanity: Finding Susan Powter, directed by Zeberiah Newman and executive produced by Jamie Lee Curtis, is set to release on November 19.