Jamie Lee Curtis was surprised with an emotional message from Susan Powter.
During a Tuesday, December 2, appearance on Today, Curtis, 67, was speaking with host Craig Melvin about her work on the documentary Stop the Insanity: Finding Susan Powter. Melvin, 46, shared that while speaking to Powter, 67, about the doc, which dropped last month, she had a special message for Curtis, an executive producer on the project.
“Much like yourself she lit up this studio. She was so grateful and thankful to you,” he said on Tuesday. “This is what she said, she sent you something.”
Curtis looked perplexed and asked, “She sent me something?”
Susan Powter gets fully transparent about her struggles on welfare in her new documentary, Stop the Insanity: Finding Susan Powter. The film, which hit select theaters on Wednesday, November 19, shines a light on “fitness queen” Powter’s public disappearance after she lost her wellness empire and declared bankruptcy in the mid-’90s. The documentary, produced by […]
The show then cut to a recording of Powter, expressing her gratitude toward Curtis.
“My hand is in yours and I’m so grateful it is,” Powter said in the clip. “The only thing we have in this life is our time, our energy and our love and you give those three things to thousands and thousands of people. Thank you Jamie Lee Curtis.”
While watching the video, Curtis got visibly choked up and fought back tears.
“It’s why we’re here,” she tearfully said.
Before seeing the clip of Powter, Curtis reflected on how she always wanted to portray Powter in a project before another opportunity came.
“Of course as a young actress, I was like, ‘Of course I’ll play her.’ Shaved hair, blonde hair, a lot of energy … duh!” she reflected noting the pair’s similarities. “Then when my friends at Newman asked me one day, ‘Do you remember Susan Powter?’”
Curtis shared that of course she knew Powter in her “heyday” with her Stop the Insanity infomercial. Powter rose to fame in the early ‘90s after sharing her personal story of being a housewife and mother who gained weight following a divorce but changed her lifestyle through diet and exercise. People called in to the program and paid for Powter’s workout tips and recipes.
The friend then told her that Power works in Las Vegas as a delivery driver. (Powter lost her fortune following a series of bad business deals and various lawsuits.)
“He said, ‘You know she delivers Uber Eats in Vegas and I said to him, ‘I’m sending you money today, get on a plane and go film her.’ That began the documentary,” she recalled.
Susan Powter gets extremely candid about her decades of financial problems in the 2025 documentary Stop the Insanity: Finding Susan Powter. The former fitness guru went from starring in iconic early 1990s exercise infomercials and hosting her own syndicated daytime talk show to walking away from Hollywood entirely in the span of a few years. […]
In Stop the Insanity: Finding Susan Powter, the fitness enthusiast opened up about her struggles and recalled being on welfare before landing her delivery gig.
“There isn’t a job I haven’t done in the past 10 years,” she told the camera while working. “I was thrilled to get a job with Uber Eats.”
Powter explained that she doesn’t need a lot of money to be happy, she just wanted enough to afford the basic necessities.
“I just want to survive, get beyond it, get what’s mine, back,” she said in the doc. “There’s no way out of this. I’ve done every shift. I’ve lived in every place. There’s no way out of this.”
