Podcast Summary

Miss Understood with Rachel Uchitel

Episode: Finding Susan Powter: Stop the Insanity and the Life That Followed
Date: December 16, 2025

Episode Overview

In this deeply engaging and raw episode, host Rachel Uchitel sits down with Susan Powter—legendary 90s fitness personality, author, and motivational speaker—whose “Stop the Insanity!” catchphrase made her a household name before her near-total disappearance from public life. Inspired by the new documentary, Finding Susan Powter, Rachel and Susan explore the rise and fall of Susan’s fame, the high cost of misplaced trust, her battles with shame and invisibility, the realities of starting over, and a powerful message about resilience, reinvention, and never truly being “done.” Susan’s startling candor, humor, and hard-earned wisdom make this an unforgettable portrait of what it means to lose everything and keep going.

Major Themes & Key Discussion Points

1. Rise to Fame and the “Stop the Insanity” Era

• Susan recounts her humble beginnings: newly single, overweight, and financially stranded in Garland, Texas, she became a stripper to support her children and eventually opened a fitness studio.
  • “I was 260 pounds from the babies... I became a stripper. I stripped for years. Million Dollar Saloon, Lower Greenville. Oh yeah, Bernadette, I'm a fabulous stripper.” (24:18)
• Her distinctive look and energy drew media attention; national TV appearances inadvertently launched her fitness empire.
  • “He asked me one question. I completely ignored him. I looked straight through the camera and I was like, stop the insanity. I broke records.” (01:32)

2. Misplaced Trust, Betrayal, and Financial Ruin

• Susan describes being a single mother, juggling fame and motherhood, and trusting industry professionals to manage her growing fortune—a mistake that eventually led to her financial downfall.
  • “The mistake I made was that I assumed that the people, lawyers, accountants, managers, that they were doing the job I was paying them mightily for. That was a mistake.” (41:32)
• She ultimately fired her entire team after discovering financial mismanagement and began life anew with her children in Seattle.
  • “I fired everyone in one paragraph... took my 4 week old baby and I moved from LA to Seattle.” (41:37)

3. Dark Times: Poverty, Shame, Invisibility

• After her fall, Susan worked every job imaginable: waitressing, managing a café, delivering Uber Eats, even unloading mattresses.
  • “There isn't a job I haven't done... I think the worst, most humiliating one is I delivered mattresses once.” (88:57)
• She details the humiliation and heartbreak of going unrecognized, even scorned, by people who remembered her from her fame.
  • “The bus driver opened the door and laughed at me. She said, what are you doing getting on a bus? Are you pretending to ride the bus? I was like, no, I don't have a car. And she was like, but you're Susan Powter, right?” (19:58)
• Describes near-suicidal periods, deep sadness, and the fear of being a burden to her children.
  • “I came very close to not making it. We can't pretend people don't think about killing themselves.” (54:18)
  • Her trademark humor punctuates even the darkest stories: “Damn it, this is a hybrid car. It doesn't even produce enough carbon monoxide to kill me.” (54:52)

4. Motherhood, Identity, and Lessons Learned

• Susan’s relationship with her three sons, single parenting, and raising them with intention and discipline.
  • “I deliberately had another child at 40... to teach birth control to the 15 and 16 year old.” (10:49)
• She reflects on mistakes made, not as victimhood, but with acceptance and responsibility.
  • “I take full responsibility. I should have checked the bank accounts and I didn't.” (22:12)

5. The Search for Susan Powter: Documentary and Redemption

• Filmmaker Zebra Newman spent nine months tracking Susan down for the new documentary.
  • “Zebra Newman looked for me for nine months. He is the director of the film and a brilliant filmmaker.” (47:47)
• Jamie Lee Curtis became executive producer after a serendipitous phone call, helping launch the project.
  • “Jamie Lee Curtis called him and said, I want to know—is her being the same? Is she intact?... She wired money to produce the movie that day.” (64:15)
• Susan describes not watching the film herself and realizing the importance of her work only through others’ reactions.
  • “I've never seen the documentary. What do you mean? Never seen the movie. Never seen a monitor. Never.” (85:47)
  • “I almost missed... It was all out there, Susan. The work is respected. People do remember the work meant something.” (108:28)

6. Current Life: Simplicity, Integrity, and Hope

• Still works as an Uber Eats driver, lives simply, saves every dollar, with plans to live in a tiny RV on her own land surrounded by animals.
  • “Nothing has changed. But everything has changed... I have hope. I have really good people around me. My children are proud as hell. I have a movie that's number one.” (90:19)
• Fiercely independent: “I will never have a fancy car... If I do anything, I'm going to get a Volkswagen beetle redone... I'm going to buy land and have animals, not humans.” (63:45; 76:47)
• No desire to return to old trappings of fame or relationships for their own sake, but embracing passion in all forms—intellectual, romantic, or through food, art, and connection.

7. Fitness, Wellness, and Integrity in the Age of Ozempic

• Still fiercely believes in common-sense, accessible wellness over quick fixes (e.g., Ozempic), and decries targeting children with weight-loss drugs.
  • “What pisses me off is they're targeting the children... You're putting them on stomach paralysis drugs. That doesn't solve the problem.” (31:21)
• Emphasizes basics: eat, breathe, move, and think for holistic health.
  • “If you live in a human body, there are five things you have to do and I can tell you how you're gonna do them.” (31:20)

8. Being Misunderstood, and the Power of Redemption

• Susan reflects on how the world reduces loud, powerful women to “crazy,” and the most common misconception about her:
  • “That I'm not smart. That I'm just loud and crazy and nuts and in, pardon the pun, insane. That I'm not smart.” (109:43)
• On possibility and survival: “Hang the hell on. Because you don't know what is about to happen... The most revolutionary thing any human being can do is internal wellness. It's a power.” (105:47 - 106:35)

Notable Quotes

• “I didn't go from Hollywood to Harbor Island. I worked jobs, I did whatever. I was fine. I'm not fancy. I don't need to be someone. I wasn't trying to be a personality. Not the first time and not the second time. That's why people respond. They're like, oh, she's normal as hell.”
  — Susan Powter (71:15)

• “Well, honey, when you can vibrate 35 times a second, give me a fucking call, okay?” (on being told she needs a good man)
  — Susan Powter (99:33)

• “I'm on the revenge train. I am. Oh, I'm on the revenge train. I mean, bitch better have my money. Rihanna 101. No. No. Hello. That's what I'm proud of. They thought I was long gone.”
  — Susan Powter (49:40)

• “I was mortified and humiliated... but being someone sometime, it's not harder. I'm never going to say that, but it's maybe a little more shocking. It's like, whoa... Everyone assumes I'm loaded, right?”
  — Susan Powter (19:58)

• “I hope we all take from this that we are on the verge of a comeback if we allow it to happen.”
  — Rachel Uchitel (pre-interview intro, 04:45)

Timeline of Major Segments

| Timestamp | Segment or Topic | |-----------|-----------------| | 01:30 | Iconic “Stop the Insanity” TV moment and early persona | | 09:21 | Motherhood and raising responsible sons alone | | 24:18 | Susan’s origins: Stripping, financial struggle, opening a studio | | 29:12 | Fitness philosophy: Slow burning, common-sense health | | 41:32 | Betrayal, financial loss, and firing her management | | 54:18 | Rock bottom, depression, close to suicide—and her humor about it | | 63:00+ | Meeting the filmmaker, Jamie Lee Curtis backs documentary | | 76:00 | On love, aging, living independently, moving to an RV | | 85:47 | On why Susan refuses to watch the documentary herself | | 90:20 | Present-day: Simple life, Uber Eats, hope, redemption | | 99:33 | Defiant, feminist wit about relationships and men | | 109:43 | The most misunderstood thing about Susan: “That I'm not smart.” |

Memorable Moments

• Louis Anderson Opening the Door (57:08): Susan recounts delivering Uber Eats to comedian Louis Anderson, who recognized her but respected her situation: “He knew my pain. And I will never forget him for being respectful enough to let me know he knew it was me without making me feel... That took me out for three days.”
• The Hybrid Car Story (54:52): Even her darkest moments are undercut by biting humor. Considering suicide, she quips, “Damn it, this is a hybrid car. It doesn't even produce enough carbon monoxide to kill me.”
• Mother-dog Bond (83:16): Deeply moving retelling of losing her beloved dog, Em, and how that grief shaped—and continues to shape—her resilience.

Closing Thoughts

Susan Powter’s conversation with Rachel Uchitel is a brave, funny, and radically honest look at fame, loss, reinvention, and the complex realities behind public personas. At 68, Susan is sharp as ever, challenging stereotypes of women, age, work, and wellness, while refusing to play the victim. Her story, as told both in this interview and in the new documentary, demonstrates the power of tenacity, humility, and the capacity for self-reinvention at any point in life.

Where to Find More

• Documentary: Finding Susan Powter – Streaming on Amazon and multiple platforms.
• Book: And Then Em Died: Stop the... A Memoir – Available on Amazon (all royalties to Susan).
• Connect: Instagram and TikTok — join Susan’s community and hear more in her own words.

Most Misunderstood Thing About Susan Powter:
“That I'm not smart. That I'm just loud and crazy and nuts and, in, pardon the pun, insane.” (109:43)

For Support:

• Buy the book, stream the documentary, or follow Susan on social media.
• Rachel Uchitel’s show continues to spotlight and humanize those who’ve been reduced to a headline, reminding listeners that reinvention and hope is always possible, right up to the very end.