90s icon Susan Powter reveals truth about her short-lived talk show

Fitness icon Susan Powter has revealed the dark truth of her nightmare experience filming her short-lived 1990s talk show.

The Susan Powter Show aired for a single season in 1994 following Powter’s overnight success for her infomercial Stop The Insanity! The nationally televised show was quickly cut short by the wellness guru’s financial troubles, which led to her filing bankruptcy in 1995 and walking away from the massive platform she had built.

Although the talk show might have been considered a high point of her career from an outside perspective, Powter has since confessed that she was miserable behind the scenes.

“I did that horrifying show for the length of my contract,” Powter, 68, told EW in a recent interview. She recalled: “I said, ‘I hate it, I hate the show. It has nothing to do with me, I’ve done it.’”

The show, which was carried by nearly 200 stations, featured segments of Powter discussing health and wellness with her guests.

Powter said she told TV executives that she wanted to walk away from the show before it ended its run.

She added that the “white men” who worked on the show were “prehistoric” and “had no idea about women’s anything,” despite the show’s attempts to highlight women’s health and interests. Powter also recalled the on-set environment as “gross” and alleged that one unnamed staffer “grabbed everyone’s ass that walked by.”

Powter went on to say that she had never quit a job before she left the talk show, which led her to try to work with producers to improve the program before she decided to exit.

“It was my f***ing show. There wasn’t a segment on that show I didn’t hate,” she said, adding that she did a good job taking on the talk show while juggling her other career ventures.

At the time, Powter ran her own aerobics center in Dallas, Texas. She had already released three books, the first of which became a national bestseller in the first week, and appeared on multiple other TV shows.

Although her program skyrocketed to fame by selling audiotapes and recipes, Powter’s million-dollar fitness empire came crashing down due to a combination of bad business negotiations and expensive legal fees.

Now working as an Uber Eats driver, Powter opened up about her rise and fall from fame in Stop the Insanity: Finding Susan Powter, her 2025 documentary produced by Jamie Lee Curtis.