Whatever Happened to ’90s Fitness Icon Susan Powter of ‘Stop the Insanity!’

If you were interested in the diet and exercise culture in the 1990s, you may remember Susan Powter. She became the face of the Stop the Insanity! infomercials and eventually got her own show, The Susan Powter Show. In addition, she released several diet and weight loss books plus other health products. Then, she seemingly disappeared.

Now, she is back with a new book about her experiences called And Then Em Died…Stop the Insanity! A Memoir. While she should have been making millions selling her products and working steadily, instead, she had to file for bankruptcy in 1995.

Powter explained, “I wasn’t running my company; it was a 50/50 deal. 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.”

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Eventually, she decided to move to Seattle with her three children because of all of the heartbreak and money lost. Later on, she moved to Las Vegas and has been working as a Grubhub and Uber Eats delivery driver for the past six years. At 66 years old, she lives in low-income senior housing.

She admitted that she lost all hope until she was approached by actress Jamie Lee Curtis with the idea of documenting her life story. She said of the meeting, “I was in tears. And I said ‘Thank you. Thank you for believing in me. I had lost faith. I had lost complete and absolute hope.’” Not only is she releasing a book but there will be a documentary called Stop the Insanity: Finding Susan Powter, with Curtis serving as the executive producer.

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Powter said of reconnecting with fans, “Those women will hear my voice, and they’ll be like, ‘Well, goddamn, she hasn’t changed one bit.’ What I feel now is the possibility of possibilities. There were days and days, months and months and years of not feeling that. I lost hope, but I’m filled with it now. I have never been more excited.”