Fitness queen Kayla Itsines reveals reason for engagement break-up

Fitness mogul Kayla Itsines has taken to a podcast to bare all and reveal the reason for her former break-up, admitting ‘we have different morals’.

Aussie fitness queen Kayla Itsines has bared all on a recent podcast and revealed why she broke off her engagement.

The multi-millionaire took to Mammamia’s No Filter podcast and told host Kate Langbroek the decision to separate from her former fiance and business partner Tobi Pearce came down to “different morals”.

“We are different people with different morals. It works so well in business … but we were very young,” Itsines said.

“My strengths were creative, speaking to people, understanding women [and] doing the boot camps.

“(While Tobi) was really level-headed and logical,” she said. “That works fantastically in business (but) I think Tobi will agree, not so well in a relationship”.

The OG fitness influencer met her former partner in 2012 at the gym where Pearce worked as a personal trainer, before they co-founded the High Impact with Kayla (formerly BBG) programs and the Sweat app.

Itsines announced the break-up to her millions of followers in 2020. Picture: Instagram

The couple were together for eight years, engaged for two, and welcomed their daughter Arna in 2019. However, a year later she realised the relationship had to end for good.

“I think this will relate to so many women, and it’s gonna sound really weird. But one day you wake up, and it just hits you. I woke up and I was like, ‘This isn’t working. This isn’t for me,’” Itsines said.

The fitness mogul admitted the separation boiled down to her and Pearce being opposites.

“When you think something is working, it might be working in one area — that is business. And it was a fantastic business and rewarding business,” she said.

“But as humans, in a relationship for the rest of your life, if you are the polar opposite, like we were in business you’re not going to connect romantically.”

“People say opposites attract, but I disagree.”

In the end, the mum-of-two said she trusted her gut feeling which told her “this isn’t quite right”.

Itsines and Pearce at the gender reveal for their daughter Arna. Picture: Instagram

The Adelaide couple were called the ‘first couple of fitness’. Picture: Instagram

The couple confirmed their split in 2020 and said they would “always be family, and remain good friends and devoted parents” to their daughter. Both of them now are in new relationships.

“Tobi is a great person, but he’s just not my person. It took time to realise that,” she said.

Around a year later, fans were shocked when Itsines started dating fellow Adelaide local Jae Woodroffe and “everything” changed.

“I was actually best friends with Jae’s sister, so you know they’re always there but you never see them. Jae and I were really close friends, and we had also both become single at the same time,” she recalled,” Itsines told Langbroek.

“We were driving and wondering what to do with our lives and I was like, ‘Maybe we should just build a friends’ house and all live there.’ Then he said, ‘Or we could be together’,” Itsines revealed.

Itsines called Woodroffe her “best friend.” Picture: Instagram

The couple married in December 2023. Picture: Instagram

“He put the idea in my head, and it kind of made sense because we work together all the time and if either of us had partners they wouldn’t like us being so close with one another.

“It kind of hit me. I had been in the wrong spot and the right person was waiting. It was Jae.”

The couple’s relationship quickly progressed from friendship to romance and they welcomed a son, Jax, in January 2023 before they married in December later that year.

“My husband now, we’re just so similar and we’re best friends.”

“And that was not the case [with Pearce]. You just want to be with your best friend,” she said.

“I’m happy with the basics. As long as my family is healthy, I get to travel around, I have the freedom to be able to spend time with my kids and family, then I’m truly happy.

“And I have the best husband in the world.”