Former fitness guru Susan Powter has credited motherhood with helping her overcome financial instability.
Powter built a fitness empire in the 1990s with her Stop the Insanity! infomercials and exercise videos before a series of bad business deals and lawsuits forced her to file for bankruptcy in 1995.
Susan Powter married her first husband, Nic Villarreal, in 1982 and they shared two sons: Damien, born in 1983, and Kiel, born in 1984. At the height of her financial troubles, Powter also went through a divorce with her second husband, Lincoln Apeland, and later adopted her youngest son, Gabriel, in 1998.
After walking away from Hollywood, Powter experienced periods of living in welfare hotels and worked as an Uber Eats driver to support herself. In her 2025 documentary, Stop the Insanity: Finding Susan Powter, the former fitness guru admitted that her struggle to provide for her children was the hardest part of her downfall.
“I miss buying my son sheets and being the one in the store helping him set up his apartment,” she tearfully explains in the film. “And they stop asking you out of respect because they don’t want to make you feel bad, but I still do.”
Keep scrolling for Powter’s honest comments about motherhood.
Starting a Family
In a 1994 speech at the Broadcast Advertising Club, Powter recalled how she was able to completely reinvent her life through fitness as a single mother in the late 1980s.
“I was a frightened, angry, isolated single mother who dealt with trauma by shoving fat into my mouth,” she said. “I went up to 260 pounds. I had yo-yo’d my whole life, but I was never obese like this. I had no energy, I was depressed, my ankles were blown up. I knew I had to resurrect myself from the dead.”
She even admitted, “I’m not kidding when I tell you I was going to blow my head off. I am not lying. I didn’t want to live anymore. My life was in the toilet.”
Powter made significant changes in her life and built a hugely successful fitness brand throughout the early 1990s with her Stop the Insanity! infomercials.
The Demands of Her Career
Powter opened up her own Susan Powter Wellness Center in 1988. She parlayed the success of the fitness studio into making her first Stop the Insanity! infomercial in 1992.
Prior to her 1995 bankruptcy, she worked as a health correspondent on ABC series Home and hosted her own daytime Susan Powter Show for a single season.
Susan Powter during an interview on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno October 14, 1993. Margaret Norton/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images
Powter admitted on NBC’s Today in November 2025 that she was often torn between her skyrocketing career and parental responsibilities in the early 1990s.
“I’m raising my children, commuting back and forth [to events],” she remembered. “I was going to the big meetings and then going to the baseball games.”
Career Struggles
Powter’s career collapsed in the mid 1990s when a series of bad business investments and a legal dispute with her former business partner forced her to file for bankruptcy.
She conceded on Today in 2025 that she didn’t pay enough attention to her financial situation because of her jam-packed work and parenting schedule.
“I take full responsibility. I never checked [on my financial status],” she explained to hosts Savannah Guthrie and Craig Melvin. “I never asked, ‘Where’s the money?’ I never said that. It’s not that there was no money. I didn’t go from Hollywood to … a welfare hotel in five years. There was a little bit of money but not the amount of money that was generated.”
She remembered, “I just walked away. I literally walked away. I did it very intentionally.”
Life Outside the Spotlight
Powter filed for bankruptcy and divorced her second husband in 1995. She relocated her family to Seattle, Washington, in order to start a new life and adopted her youngest son, Gabriel, in 1998.
“I didn’t just make a decision to leave. My heart got stomped in half,” she told Fox News. “It was shocking. I was furious. And I was just like, I’m just out.”
Powter remembered feeling “very happy” for a few years after leaving Hollywood, but eventually had to face up to her financial instability. She lived in welfare hotels and worked as a food delivery driver for Uber Eats and Grubhub to keep herself afloat.
Susan Powter attends the Caring for Babies with AIDS’ Fifth Annual Stroll-A-Thon on November 12, 1995 in Beverly Hills, California. Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images
“I didn’t think there would never be another book or video. I’ve never not worked. I never thought I wouldn’t be able to make a living,” she told People. “But try to get a job as a 60-year-old woman.”
In recent years, Powter has lived in a community for low-income senior citizens.
“I’ve known desperation,” she told People. “Desperation is walking back from the welfare office. It’s the shock of, ‘From there, now I’m here? How in God’s name?’”
Current Relationships With Her Children
The 2025 documentary Stop the Insanity: Finding Susan Powter delves into Powter’s relationships with her children these days. In one powerful scene, Powter says she is still on good terms with all three sons but misses feeling like “Susan Powter, the mother.”
In another scene, Powter breaks down when her son offers to buy her bed sheets for her new apartment because she can’t afford them.
“I had to pretend I wasn’t dying inside,” she later admitted. “And I made some ridiculous excuse [to leave].”
Powter confesses that she’s battled feelings of guilt over her sons having to watch her struggle financially.
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“I miss buying my son sheets and being the one in the store helping him set up his apartment,” she tearfully explains in the documentary. ”And they stop asking you out of respect because they don’t want to make you feel bad, but I still do. I miss that. That’s what I mean by ‘normal.’ My normal. Those years are gone. Everybody has adjusted, but I haven’t. That feeling is cellular. It doesn’t go anywhere. It makes you feel like a piece of s***.”
When her car breaks down mid-filming, Powter says her sons would not hesitate to pay for her repairs, but she doesn’t want to “bother” them.
Powter told Today in November 2025 that one of her sons “scrounged up $2,600” to help her move from a welfare hotel to a senior living community.
Her Sons Are Not Featured in Documentary ‘Stop the Insanity: Finding Susan Powter’
Powter revealed in her Today interview that her three sons do not appear in Stop the Insanity: Finding Susan Powter, at her request.
“They’re very proud of me because I work,” she insisted. “Give me a job and I’ll work.”
The documentary also clarifies that they did not participate at her request, but are very active in her life and supportive behind the scenes.
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