Kayla Itsines: How a backyard personal trainer from Adelaide became a global fitness queen
From Adelaide backyard personal trainer to a global fitness icon, Kayla Itsines, who has just welcomed a new baby, has had a meteoric rise to fame. But it hasn’t all been smooth sailing.
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Kayla Itsines has packed more into the last decade than some people will accomplish in a lifetime.
Together with business partner, and ex-life partner, Tobi Pearce, Itsines, who today announced her engagement to boyfriend Jae Woodroofe, has built a global fitness empire boasting millions of fans and customers around the world – and amassed a fortune in the process.
BIKINI BODY GUIDE
Itsines’ meteoric rise started in 2009 when she was working as a personal trainer in Adelaide and began posting pictures of her clients’ progress on Instagram.
Around 2011, Itsines and Pearce developed a series of downloadable PDF guides that promoted exercise and healthy eating, known as the “Bikini Body Guide”.
The savvy young couple harnessed the power of social media to help them grow the brand, of which Itsines has always been the face.
As of June, 2022, Itsines’ own branded Facebook page had a staggering 28m followers, with her Instagram boasting 14.8m followers.
The PDF guides evolved into e-books, branded fitness equipment and in 2015, a smartphone app called Sweat with Kayla.
By 2016, Itsines and Pearce had made it to BRW’s Rich List with an estimated fortune of $46m.
The company was eventually rebranded Sweat and has since risen to become the top ranking home fitness app and one of the world’s largest digital fitness training platforms for women.
PERSONAL LIFE
Itsines was born in 1991 and is from a tight knit family of Greek descent.
In 2016, she told SA Weekend family was everything. “Like, have you seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding, or, like, Wog Boy or any of those sort of movies?” “That’s it. It’s a house filled with family. My cousins are there every day. It was the four of us, my mum, my dad, my sister and me, and then it was, like, four, eight, another 10 people a night, in and out of the house all night. There would be food, a big group, it was just a big gathering and when they didn’t come over it was like, ‘where are you guys?’”
Itsines and her business partner Tobi Pearce, 30, started dating after meeting, naturally, at a gym.
Itsines says Pearce was extremely driven, studying a double degree in Law and Commerce and getting up at 4.30am each day to work with clients as a personal trainer.
As SA Weekend reported, it was Pearce’s idea to develop the Bikini Body Guide.
Itsines gave birth to the couple’s daughter, Arna Leia Pearce, in 2019.
But, sadly, the couple announced their separation in 2020, with Itsines writing on Instagram that the pair would “always be family and remain good friends and devoted parents to Arna”.
And despite the split, Itsines and Pearce continued to run their business, Sweat, together.
In January, 2022, Pearce went public with his new relationship with Rachel Dillon, a three-time World Beauty Fitness and Fashion bikini champion from Townsville.
Just a week later, Itsines also introduced her new love, telling her close to 15m Instagram followers she was officially in a relationship with her “best friend” Jae Woodroffe.
The couple announced their engagement in July, 2022.
“Meet Jae everyone!”, Itsines wrote in a post on Instagram.
“My best friend for years and now, partner. For all those people replying to my stories saying ‘You look really happy’ … thank you! I am.”
In happier news, the couple welcomed their first child together in January, 2023, a boy - Jax Stokes Woodroffe.
“Words absolutely cannot describe this feeling,” Itsines wrote on Instagram.
“We are SO HAPPY RIGHT NOW”.
LANDING A MASSIVE DEAL? NO SWEAT
In July 2021, Itsines and Pearce sold Sweat to US software giant iFIT Health & Fitness Inc for a staggering A$400m. The pair announced they would continue to run the company from Adelaide and would keep their second office in Melbourne.
“Sweat has had an incredible journey from our humble beginnings training women one-on-one in my Adelaide backyard to launching the Sweat app in 2015 to now joining the iFIT family,” Itsines said at the time of the sale.
PERSONAL WEALTH
Despite the company posting a $5.4m loss in 2020, Itsines and Pearce shared in a $23.2m dividend and were each valued at $209m on AFR’s Young Rich List.
COURT BATTLES
Itsines’ rise to the top has not been without its challenges.
In 2015, Itsines sued another then-Adelaide-based fitness guru, Leanne Ratcliffe - better known as “Freelee the Banana Girl” because she ate 50 bananas a day and sang their praises - for defamation.
Itsines accused Ratcliffe and her partner Harley Johnstone, of defaming her and Pearce by making false claims their fitness program starved people, and that Pearce used steroids.
The case was eventually settled out of courts, with Ratcliffe and Johnstone agreeing not to disparage Itsines online.
WOMEN RAISE BODY IMAGE CONCERNS
In April, 2022, in a special investigation by The Advertiser, a number of young women spoke about the vicious cycle of dieting, bingeing and body obsession they say the Bikini Body Guide triggered for them.
Government nutrition calculators estimate that the guide’s recommended daily meal plan had an approximate kilojoule intake of 5800 - about half the recommended intake for active young women aged 16-20.
Itsines has since changed her approach, steering away from a weight loss-centric ideology and opting instead for a more holistic view of health and fitness.
In 2021, the Bikini Body Guide was renamed ‘High Intensity with Kayla’.
Itsines said she regretted the phrase Bikini Body because it “represented an outdated view of health and fitness”.
“It has been almost 10 years since I created BBG with the positive intent that every body is a bikini body,” Itsines said last year.
“I’m proud that, as a company, we can look at something and think ‘that’s not good enough’ or ‘that’s not right anymore’ and make the relevant changes.”
But some women told The Advertiser they are still dealing with the negative consequences of the lessons they took from the Bikini Body Guide.
“I would absolutely say that Kayla’s guide was the beginning of my negative relationship with my body,” 28-year-old Lily Robinson told The Advertiser.
In May, after reading the Advertiser’s report, Adelaide mum Linda* came forward to claim her daughter developed severe mental health issues after following the guide.
In a statement, Sweat, the parent company of the Bikini Body Guide of which Itsines is still involved, said that while it sympathised with the woman’s plight, the app “(promoted) the benefits of fitness and leading a healthy, balanced lifestyle”.
Itsines did not respond to The Advertiser’s request for comment.
*Not her real name.
Originally published as Kayla Itsines: How a backyard personal trainer from Adelaide became a global fitness queen
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