Michelle Bridges responds to Biggest Loser critics
In a frank new interview, fitness guru Michelle Bridges fires up about criticism of reality show The Biggest Loser, reveals how a DUI charge in 2020 changed her forever — and admits she can’t tell her mother how much she paid for her new home.
Stellar
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For years, personal trainer and TV personality Michelle Bridges touted the idea that self-restraint, tough love and pushing past your limits were key to physical contentment with her role on the reality series The Biggest Loser.
But popular sentiment around health and weight loss has shifted dramatically since then and, by her own admission, even Bridges is “not as strong, fit, toned or flexible as I used to be”.
In a frank conversation on Stellar’s podcast Something To Talk About, Bridges opens up about the series’ complicated legacy, reflects on how a drink-driving charge in 2020 helped her to embrace vulnerability, and considers what life as a mother and mogul looks like in her 50s: “I just feel really good now. Like, here comes the next chapter, girlfriend. Bring it on.”
On how her relationship with her body has changed over time: “A couple of years ago I feel like I kind of lost my way with my training a little bit. I turned 50 and I was waiting for what the symptoms of perimenopause and menopause are going to bring and I just thought, oh, well, maybe this is just the way it is. I remember thinking at one point, hang on, are you waving the white flag, Bridges? Is that what you’re doing?
Listen to the full interview with Michelle on Something To Talk About:
“Because that’s not your style andI thought, well, no, it’s not. I had this big moment where I thought, OK, hang on. I may have put myself out to pasture a bit too soon. I love my body and it has changed.
“It’s not anywhere near the same as it used to be. It’s not as strong. It’s not as fit. It’s not as toned. It’s not as flexible. But I’m good with that. I work with that. I get smart about my training. I know I’ve still got to futureproof myself.
“I train now because, I say to Axel [her seven-year old son with Steve ‘Commando’ Willis, with whom she split in late 2019 after seven years together], ‘I want to still be able to pick you up.’ He says, ‘Mummy, do you do weights so you can still pick me up?’ I’m like, ‘Yes, that’s right, babe.’”
On The Biggest Loser [Bridges was a lead trainer on the reality TV series about contestants competing to lose weight from 2007-2015; the show was cancelled after a rebooted 2017 season failed to attract viewers] and the complicated current-day discussions that reconsider the ethics of the show: “I learnt so much about fitness, wellbeing, the psychology behind so much of the issues around body image.
“Some of it was pretty heavy stuff, and I applaud the honesty and the transparency that a lot of our contestants showed us through those years.
“It was of its time. It was a totally different era. It’s easy to look back and pooh-pooh something. Rather than taking the negativity, what I think I get quite excited about is the possibility about what doors it opens.
“These conversations are what open up the doors for a whole new conversation, for a whole new potential television show, which I, by the way, would just love to be a part of. I think it’s necessary.
“I think health is a big topic of conversation. It’s not going away. So it’s how we steer the ship with sensitivity, with compassion, with empathy, but also with the view of better health for Australians. We know we can do better.”
On being confronted with criticism of The Biggest Loser from body-positive activists during a discussion on The Project earlier this year, including being told by a panellist the series was “one of the most traumatic things that ever happened to me”: “I guess that’s part of the legacy of doing The Biggest Loser. I’ve had to kind of wear that, but I’m not going to wear it anymore. I’m done.
“I think anybody who knows me knows what I’m here for and the reasons why I do what I do – and I think, also, that day when I left that panel and said goodbye to everybody, I think they weren’t expecting the person who turned up.
“They might have been expecting that girl from 15 years ago wearing the red trainer T-shirt to come in and tell everyone to do some squats and burpees. When I turned up and I wasn’t that girl, I think they got a bit of a shock.
“There’s a lot more to me. Especially now, at my age as well – I remember being in my 20s and hearing women in their 50s say you just get to a point where, pardon my French, but you just don’t give a f*ck.
“This is me, and I finally feel free to say that. Now that I am in my 50s, I get what they were saying because I kind of feel the same. I care, obviously, but I take on less of the negative.”
On the reaction to her having Axel in 2015, at the age of 45: “A ‘geriatric uterus’, that’s what I was informed [that I had] at the time. I think it was unusual, not desperately so, but it was a topic of conversation.
“I know there was some judgement rolled out, around career. I was just thrilled that it happened, I was very much in my career – very much – and I loved it, and I wouldn’t change a thing there.
“It was pretty busy. It probably got a bit too crazy for a couple of years but there came a time where I thought, if I don’t do it now, it’s not going to happen.
“So I actually went down the path of IVF because I thought, well, that’s going to have to be the way that it normally is, but I was very fortunate I didn’t have to, and I feel very blessed for that. I understand and appreciate the hardship of going through IVF. It’s tough.
“There are pros and cons about being an older mum, but I feel that the pros outweigh the cons, and that’s why I manage to always make sure to look after my health, because I want to still be able to run around and keep up with [Axel] and maintain my health all the way through, as best as I possibly can.
“It’s like I reverse-engineered my life in a way, and I feel super grateful that I’m able to do all the things that I know my mum would have loved to have done for me, but couldn’t.”
On the impact that her own childhood and being raised by a single mother has had on the way she parents her son: “Mum worked a full-time job in the 1970s. She was told that if her children got in the way, she’d be fired. That if [my sister and I] were sick, it couldn’t come between her and her job.
“Often, dare I say it, she’d have to leave us at home all by ourselves for the whole day, or she’d go to work if we were really sick and couldn’t go to school and she’d be like, ‘Don’t answer the phone. Don’t answer the door. Here’s a sandwich. Stay in bed’.
“If I had to do that, I’d be beside myself. These things could never be done now, but it was 1978 and that was the world we lived in. When it came to school carnivals, swimming carnivals, sports carnivals, anything, she could never come. Never, ever, ever, and I felt really disappointed many times for that.
“So now I’ve sorted my life, and I’m very grateful for it, where I drop him off, I pick him up. If there’s a special breakfast at school or a sports carnival, I’m still so grateful that I can be that mum. I know that many mums can’t.”
On owning her status as a self-made businesswoman [Bridges launched her health and fitness program, 12 Week Body Transformation, in 2010]: “It was a massive team effort through the years, but you wonder if it’s intimidating and I think it is.
“If I were being honest, I think it can be, and therefore what you end up doing is playing yourself down a little bit … not a little bit, quite a lot sometimes and, just not shining too much and not tooting your horn too much.
“I’m back in Sydney [since selling the NSW Southern Highlands home she bought in 2017] and I’m heading off to an auction.
“I took a leaf out of Jackie’s book [Jackie “O” Henderson recently spoke to Something To Talk About about attending the auction herself when purchasing her new beachfront home] and I thought, you know what? I’m going to go, I’m going to be the bidder.
“I’m going to do it. It’s my money. I’m going to be that person and not hide behind a phone call – because I was inspired about her doing that, and I’m proud of it. I’m super proud of it.
“I drove into Sydney in my second-hand Holden Barina in about 1995 or 1996, and I honestly had about $300 in the bank and no job prospects.
“So I’ve worked damn hard. I did the jobs that no-one wanted to do back in the really early days of the fitness industry, spent weekends working, working, working – seven days a week.
“I’m really proud of the fact that I can now give Axel a life that I feel proud of and that I know that my mum wanted to give me. We came from not much and I think there are a few things you’ve got to kind of overcome.
“Like, I still can’t tell my mum about buying this house. I said to my girlfriend, ‘I can’t tell Mum about how much it costs.’ She’s like, ‘Well you don’t have to.’ And I said, ‘No, I don’t have to, but she’ll probably Google it and find out’.
“When you haven’t come from money, there are a few roadblocks and a few things internally that you have to work through so that you cannot feel guilty about it.”
On whether she feels ready to start dating and what the latter half of her 50s has in-store: “One of my dearest friends, Johnny, said to me, ‘Mishy, no one is going to drive up that driveway, girlfriend. You’ve got to get out there.’ I’m like, yeah, I kind of feel like I may have put myself out to pasture a bit too soon living out here.
“So definitely, now that I’m back in the city, there’s probably more potential but I guess, more importantly, I feel ready. I think. I feel really excited about the future. I haven’t said that for a little while, but I do.
“I really feel like the move back here has been an absolute positive thing for both me and Ax, but definitely for me.
“I just feel like maybe I might meet someone, because I’m going out more socially now, and just keep it chill.
“Not anything too serious, but nice – just go out for dinner, go to a movie or something like that.”
On the concept of forgiveness and learning that it’s OK to ask for help, particularly following her drink driving charge in 2020 (that Australia Day, Bridges returned a positive blood alcohol reading during a random breath test and later pleaded guilty in court to mid-range drink driving; following the incident, she released a statement announcing that she and Willis had separated weeks earlier): “If I really look at it, it wouldn’t have been just a couple of months of the hardest point of my life – it was easily six months. That was a long time of not being in a great place and it culminated in what was then a DUI, which was like the biggest mistake of my life.
“One that I’ll regret forever, one that I’ve apologised over and wrung my hands over and learnt from. It was the first time that I actually thought, I don’t have the answers, people.
“It was the first time in my life that I just went, you know, I’ve got nothing. I just got nothing. And, yes, I need help. Just some support and some love and to feel vulnerable and be OK with it. Because I’d always just gone, ‘No I’m fine’.
“It was lovely, the support and love that I had from friends and family, but strangers as well, and people from my 12 Week Body Transformation [community]. It was incredible, and it was a big eye-opener for me that it’s OK to be vulnerable.
“What got me through – and it’s almost enough to bring me to tears – is how beautiful humanity can be when someone trips up. It can be nasty, too, but it was overwhelmingly beautiful.
“It blew me away. That was a big part of me now getting to a place where, today, I just feel really good.
“I feel really good about everything that I’ve learnt, everything that I’ve grown through, gone through, the way that I’ve managed to navigate myself back to just feeling like, OK, here comes the next chapter, girlfriend. Bring it on.”
Originally published as Michelle Bridges responds to Biggest Loser critics
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