Susan Powter Net Worth

What Is Susan Powter's Net Worth?

Susan Powter is an Australian motivational speaker, dietitian, personal trainer, and author who has a net worth of $50 thousand. As we detail in the next section below, Susan's corporation earned $50 million per year at its peak. Unfortunately, Susan herself earned just a tiny fraction of that amount. A costly legal case and an unrelated divorce eventually led her to file for bankruptcy. By 2018, she was apparently living out of an RV and began doing food delivery to make rent.

Susan Powter emerged in the early 1990s as one of the most recognizable and unconventional voices in the booming fitness and self-help world. With her platinum buzzcut, sharp delivery, and trademark phrase "Stop the insanity!", she became a breakout star almost overnight. Powter's approach resonated because she rejected the punishing workout culture of the era and instead promoted accessible movement, whole foods, and rejecting diet industry gimmicks. Her infomercials became cultural staples, turning her into a household name and driving massive sales of her fitness programs and books. She followed this success with a string of bestselling titles, including "Stop the Insanity", "Food", and "The Politics of Stupid", all of which blended nutrition guidance with pointed commentary about the diet, food, and wellness industries.

Beyond books and infomercials, Powter expanded into television with The Susan Powter Show, a syndicated daytime talk show that ran in the mid-1990s and further elevated her profile. Her on-air presence was a mix of humor, confrontation, and coaching, which helped her build a devoted fan base. As the decade progressed, Powter continued releasing books and touring, but she eventually stepped back from mainstream media as the fitness landscape shifted. In later years, she resurfaced with independent projects, online content, and live talks exploring wellness, feminism, and social issues through her signature blunt style.

Although she never recreated the cultural saturation she had in the early '90s, Susan Powter remains an influential figure in modern wellness for her early critique of diet culture and for helping millions of people view health and fitness through a more empowering, less punishing lens.

Financial Problems & Bankruptcy Filing

In the 1990s, at the peak of her fame, Powter became embroiled in a bitter legal dispute with former business partners over control of her brand, including the rights to her own name and the lucrative "Stop the Insanity" trademark. She ultimately won back the rights, but the battle was financially devastating. In January 1995, she filed for personal bankruptcy and listed $3 million in liabilities. Court filings revealed the scale of the operation that had grown around her: in the two years prior to the lawsuit, Powter had received $3.5 million from the corporation she was fighting over, while the business itself was reportedly generating around $50 million per year. Her former manager claimed she earned just $13,000 in 1990, the year before they partnered, underscoring how quickly the empire had risen. At the time, Powter described her situation bluntly, saying:

"I am broke. I just don't have the money. I may have made a bazillion dollars this year, but the corporation got the money. I have no control of the finances. I have a lot of bills. I have children to feed, school tuitions to pay, and it's very hard."

Although the bankruptcy resolved the immediate dispute, it marked the beginning of a long period of instability. Powter later admitted that she walked away from much of her business intentionally, saying she never asked where the money went and accepted responsibility for failing to monitor the finances built around her public persona. Over the next three decades, she drifted in and out of the spotlight, moved frequently between homes, and at times lived on Social Security checks. She eventually settled in the Southwest, spending several years in a self-built "earth ship" in New Mexico before relocating again.

Susan's financial reality came back into public view in November 2025 when she revealed in a documentary about her life that she had been supporting herself in Las Vegas by working as an Uber Eats driver. During an appearance on the "Today" show promoting the documentary, Powter emphasized that she never saw honest work as beneath her and spoke openly about the humility and resilience required to rebuild after losing a multimillion-dollar enterprise:

"Nothing is beneath me. I will work. I'll do anything. And I have… I'll tell you. Broke is one thing, broke is another. It started to break me… I'll deliver your food. I live in Las Vegas, in my same little apartment. My bed stand is a cardboard box."

Powter also takes full responsibility for losing her money:

"I take full responsibility. I never checked. I never said, 'where's the money?' So it's not that there was no money. … There was a little bit of money, but not the amount of money that was generated. And I just walked away. I literally walked away. I did it very intentionally."

Early Life

Susan Powter was born in 1957 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, though published accounts differ on whether her birthdate falls on December 12 or December 22. She immigrated to the United States with her family when she was 10 years old, settling first in the Northeast before moving frequently throughout her adolescence. Powter struggled in traditional academic settings and eventually dropped out during her freshman year of high school, later describing herself as a fiercely independent teenager who preferred working and supporting herself to sitting in a classroom. In 1980, she relocated with family to Dallas, Texas, a move that set the stage for her eventual rise as a fitness personality and motivational figure. The city became the backdrop for the earliest version of her wellness philosophy, which centered on accessible nutrition, daily movement, and challenging the commercial diet industry that she believed preyed on vulnerable consumers.

(Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images)

Stop the insanity!

Powter's career took off in the early 1990s when her high-energy infomercials and blunt, anti-diet-industry messaging made her an unlikely cultural phenomenon. Her platinum buzzcut, barefoot stage presence, and rapid-fire delivery became instantly recognizable, and her "Stop the insanity!" mantra became one of the decade's most memorable catchphrases. Powter advocated an approach built on whole foods, low-fat meals, and consistent cardiovascular exercise, positioning herself as an antidote to the punishing fad diets of the era. Her books, including "Stop the Insanity," "Food," and "C'Mon America, Let's Eat," became major sellers, with three reaching the "New York Times" best-seller list.

In 1994, her popularity earned her a syndicated daytime program, "The Susan Powter Show," which lasted one season and featured discussions on fitness, nutrition, emotional well-being, and social issues. Her confrontational yet humorous style made the show distinctive even within the crowded talk landscape of the time. After building a successful wellness studio in Dallas, Powter sold the business and moved first to Seattle and later to New Mexico, where she lived for a time in what she described as an "earth ship," a sustainable, off-grid dwelling that reflected her expanding interest in alternative lifestyles.

Powter continued writing into the 2000s with projects like the self-published "The Politics of Stupid," which critiqued societal failures around food, health, and women's empowerment. She also experimented with new media by launching a radio program, a cooking show called "Taste My Broth," and a subscription-based digital magazine titled "The Monthly Flow." In 2007, she revived her fitness and wellness blog, using it to reconnect with longtime followers and explore topics ranging from nutrition to feminism.

Dave Mustaine and Susan Powter in 1994 (Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)

Personal Life

When it comes to Susan Powter's personal life, she has been married twice, and now she declares herself as a "radical feminist lesbian woman." A mother of two sons from her first marriage, she adopted another boy right after her second marriage. In 2008, Susan dated stand-up comedian Jessica Kirson.

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