Trainer to the Stars Lifts Weights But Can't Lift a Check

As Madonna once raved, "Tracy saved me. After two caesarians, three operations for herniated discs and a fall from a horse left me with 10 broken bones, she's the only one who got my body back on its feet."

Ms. Paltrow has been no less effusive ("Her method is so rewarding because, yes, you are working hard, but you know you are getting somewhere"), even partnering up with Anderson to start up an elite gym in Tribeca, a trendy neighborhood in Manhattan. That garnered quite a few headlines when the gym was mentioned in the media this spring. The reason the media was interested was mostly because of the monthly fee to join: $900. That's right -- $900 a month.

Now we may know why the fees are so high. Indianapolis Monthly has a feature story this month about Anderson, focusing on how while she may be famous around the world, she has forgotten about a lot of people back home. If it were just a matter of not calling or emailing folks or friending them on Facebook, that'd be one thing, but it seems she owes some of them some money. Indeed, Indianapolis Monthly's Megan McCormick does a masterful job of explaining how Anderson has a rich history of leaving a lot of people poor.

For instance, when she was just starting out as a fitness trainer in Noblesville, Indiana, she hired a celebrity photographer for promotional photos, drove a luxury SUV and signed leases for businesses. But she didn't pay the rent, and she was thousands of dollars behind on homeowners association dues. Ultimately, Anderson wound up declaring bankruptcy in 2005.

More troubling -- and where it becomes possible to excuse her bad financial behavior -- is that she didn't seem to learn anything from her financial mistakes. Bankruptcy is supposed to give people a fresh start and not serve as a license to begin all of your financial errors anew. But repeating her financial strategies is exactly what happened. She started a new fitness center in Fishers, Indiana, and hired Glynn Barber, a Portland, Indiana businessman who owned a successful tool-and-die business.

The long and short of it is that he, too, became a financial casualty, building a fitness machine for Anderson that cost him $70,000. (He didn't do himself any favors when, after he realized he wasn't going to get paid, he agreed to buy into her business; nor did he help himself when the married man started a relationship with Anderson.) There have been other money missteps, but more recently -- about eight months ago -- Anderson shut down Fishers, which might not sound so bad or even responsible given her commitments to a new gym in New York, but when she closed, there were numerous customers who had prepaid for workouts and who are now out thousands of dollars.

One 32-year-old who paid for workouts and was supposed to be get money for being a dancer in Anderson's aerobics video is quoted saying, "I feel betrayed, totally embarrassed."

Anderson is reportedly working on paying off her debts to those customers, and surely some of those $900 monthly fees will help do that. And that's the interesting thing in all of this.

Anderson may not be able to manage money, but she does know how to help people become physically fit. The people interviewed in Indianapolis Monthly all attest to the fact that what she does, she does very well. So if you're reading this and wondering if her workout methods are worth the hype, the people back in Indiana would probably tell you that it is. Go to her gym. Just don't lend her money.

Geoff Williams is a freelance journalist based outside of Cincinnati. It's been several years, but he has written two feature stories for Indianapolis Monthly.