Global outrage hammers Thor star Chris Hemsworth’s fitness app Centr after Aussie lay-offs

The wellness app created and then sold by Aussie movie star Chris Hemsworth is under fire due to technical crashes, just a month after its private equity owner laid off staff.

Chris Hemsworth and wife Elsa Pataky sold their health and fitness app, Centr, to private equity firm HighPost. Picture: Greg Funnell

The fitness app developed by the Australian star of the Thor film franchise has been hammered with negative reviews and customer complaints over the past few weeks as a global outage arrives just one month after mass lay-offs.

Hollywood star Chris Hemsworth founded Centr three years ago before selling it to private equity firm HighPost, run by David Moross and Jeff Bezos’ brother, Mark, in 2022 in a deal worth $267m.

Less than 18 months later the company axed at least 22 Australian staff – announcing the lay-offs over email with a note from Centr chief executive Andrew Sugerman.

Stuntman Bobby Holland Hanton, Chris Hemsworth and personal trainer Luke Zocchi, who shared training tips on the Centr app.

“As we look to make Centr a global wellness brand by bringing the digital and physical sides of the business even closer together, we have made the difficult decision to relocate and outsource specific operations in the Melbourne office,” it read.

On Google’s play store, the app’s rating has dropped to 3.7 stars as numerous users through July and August have complained that the app “doesn’t work half the time”, how the “app is borderline unusable” and how “there are constant crashes stating ‘my session has expired’.”

The app limited new users from signing up to the platform during the glitch period. Many who claimed to be users, posted on platforms such as Twitter that they were unable to cancel subscriptions to Centr during the outage. Centr charges users $US29.99 ($44.80) per month or $US119.99 per year.

Glitches in fitness app Centr.

Users also appeared to be outraged by a photo from Hemsworth on Twitter which showed the star in a sauna and a post about how saunas and ice baths help “improve circulation, reduce inflammation, speed up muscle recovery and elevate your mood”. The post was shared by the Centr account.

“I wouldn’t know. Haven’t been able to start a workout since the app and site stopped working around 8/11. So nice to see you post pics of y’all fixing the issue tho. A++,” wrote one user.

A reply from the Centr Twitter account read: “Hey Kid, unfortunately server issues are continuing to make the connection unstable. We apologise for the ongoing disruption. Our team is working around the clock on a fix and we’re grateful for your patience.”

A spokeswoman for Centr told The Australian the issue was a “temporary technical glitch that caused intermittent outages for select Centr customers”.

“To be very clear, Centr is not shutting down nor reducing our focus on delivering the best wellness experience to our customers,” she said.

“Centr has experienced these access issues over the past couple of weeks that have impacted some Centr customers. As of Monday, August 28 (PDT), these issues have been resolved and impacted Centr customers now have access across all platforms.”

The company did not respond when asked whether all employees who had been laid off in July had received their severance packages.

The spokeswoman said despite the lay-offs, Centr’s Melbourne office continued to be its global hub where it had content strategy, customer service and content production teams.