This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Jess Rothschild: You Create Monsters.

[0:30] Jess Rothschild: In this episode, we'll review instructors making headlines in Page Six through their ego-driven behavior. We'll also trace how the most divisive presidential election of our time affected the company, plus the departure of its founders, Julie Rice and Elizabeth Cutler.

[0:54] Jess Rothschild: A New York Post headline from May 2011 reads, SoulCycle to enter strategic partnership with Equinox. Julie and Elizabeth had self-funded their current eight Manhattan studios, but if they were going to conquer California and beyond, they needed an enormous influx of cash.

[1:19] Louise: They were very adamant. They said, it's not an ownership. It's a strategic partnership.

[1:25] Louise: I started as Julie and Elizabeth's assistant and eventually became an instructor. We met her back in Episode Two, A Star is Born. We are still going to be SoulCycle. We're not going to be Equinox. They're going to help us out in these ways, but we are still us.

[1:51] Janet Fitzgerald: But those girls pulled me in to Julie's apartment. They said, we need you to come to the apartment. And I thought, oh, God, I'm in trouble for something. I've done something wrong. We sat down and they said, we're doubling your salary. And we're giving you a team and we need you to create, basically, like, it's game time. We are going to create an army. And a few of us got a signing bonus from that to make sure that we were on board for this next little chapter.

[2:46] Janet Fitzgerald: And then it was kind of explosive. It was like every other month, another studio opened for like four months. And then we had to kind of see how those markets were going to grow or change. But it was super exciting. And it felt like there was just a little buzz happening. But on the inside, the core of it, it didn't feel any different.

[3:03] Jess Rothschild: SoulCycle reached the apex of its popularity between 2011 and 2016. And yeah, it didn't feel any different. Yet.

[3:22] Janet Fitzgerald: There were pockets of SoulCycle that I would call a cult. Riders of Akin were a cult. Like they would only ride with Akin and they would ride two, three, four, five of his classes a day. A day.

[3:39] Janet Fitzgerald: Really powerful SoulCycle instructors, first and foremost, are really good fucking performers. So Akin fucking performed.

[3:49] Jess Rothschild: No instructor inspired a cult of personality more than Turkish tennis prodigy Akin Akman, a complete phenomenon within the existing frenzy that was Soul itself. In 2013, SoulCycle poached him from the Crunch gym where he had been teaching spin for free just a few blocks away. Akin isn't an instructor. He's a coach. While most instructors taught 12 classes a week, Akin was doing 30. We're talking six classes a day, seven days a week. He rode the bike himself and never needed a day off. He was allegedly the highest paid instructor approaching one million dollars a year.

[4:33] John Stein: Setting aside how much that costs. First off, I don't even know what you're doing in my life that you can ride three, four or five SoulCycle classes a day back to back to back to back to back. Akin would teach like classes in the middle of the day, 10:30, 12:32. Now, he would teach those classes also because he was one of the only ones that could sell them out. So he would sell out everything. No doubt about that. But to me, like I was like something's up here. Right. I had a front row seat to the Akin phenomenon because his classes typically fell right before or after Stevie's. Girls would follow him from studio to studio like lemmings.

[5:17] Janet Fitzgerald: If you are already showing up to a thing that's really hard, there is going to be a little bit of pick me energy that goes on in the class. You're like, damn, like I want him to notice me. And so the nature of people that you're attracting have that energy. It was a wild thing to see him build his army in front of us at the time because it was really different from what we were doing in Stevie's class or Janet's class or really any of the instructors that we took on a regular clip. It's hard to describe, but it was like they were an army. They were sort of sharing one mind, whereas I felt like maybe under Stevie's tutelage, we were a little bit the misfit of whatever the misfit toys, whereas the Akin writers were all in sync with him. They were a little bit like robots or like A.I. generated. I thought like it was it was different.

[6:19] Janet Fitzgerald: Akin's unique identifier was his speed, choreography and model looks. I found over time, not only did the choreography get more and more and more complicated in ways that I was like, OK, when we started, this was complicated enough. All of your X's and your Y's and your fronts and your backs and whatever the fuck. Why are we adding to this? I did start to feel it was a little dangerous.

[6:44] Janet Fitzgerald: Was he teaching SoulCycle? Akin was not teaching SoulCycle, but there were a lot of people that weren't teaching SoulCycle to this day. There are a lot of people not teaching SoulCycle. He was very charming. He was very handsome and he had his own method and it was wild. I think it created the great divide at SoulCycle because there was like all of us, you know, all of us on the training team. There was like, you know, Marvin and Bevan and myself and all these other players. And then there was Akin. And I didn't have an ego about everyone needing to be teaching my method. So I was cool with that. I just think that all of us were wildly, to be honest with you, I think we were all wildly jealous of Akin and his popularity and how many classes he could sell out and like how obsessed everyone was with him. I think all of us were just jealous.

[7:43] Jess Rothschild: In 2019, Page Six broke the news that Akin was leaving SoulCycle. He was opening his own fitness empire called Akin's Army, which is currently thriving in Manhattan. The entirety of his SoulCycle clientele went with him.

[8:01] Janet Fitzgerald: I am not a physical therapist. I am not an orthopedic surgeon, but I have spoken to physical therapists and I have spoken to orthopedic surgeons showing them the type of, well that exists on the bike. In exercise science, there's open chain workouts and there's closed chain workouts. I really wanted to understand the physiology behind spinning and what it does to our body and brain. I spoke to Patti Wortham, a certified Pilates bar and yoga instructor in Los Angeles. And an open chain movement would be like a jumping jack, right? Like you're not connected to anything. Your energy is just kind of like getting dispersed out into the space around you. A closed chain movement means like picture a pushup.

Your hands are pushing into the floor. Your toes are connected to the ground. I have heard from numerous orthopedists that they would not be surprised if many of those riders in that class or that type of class will be having hip surgeries or hip replacements by the time they're 50, 55 years old.

[9:03] Janet Fitzgerald: With spin, because the soles of your feet are clipped, they are stuck into the pedals. And so in terms of physics, your body is going to do whatever it takes to work with the fact that your feet are stuck. And so that does two things. It compromises the integrity of like whatever position you're in, like your hips, your knees, they're just going to accommodate the fact that your feet have to stay in those pedals. If you think about the workout itself, if your feet are stuck in the pedals, and you're going as fast and as hard as you can, the animal in you is having a real fight or flight experience. And to me, a lot of it has just always been a gimmick for social media. Someone's not going to sit there and watch 30 seconds of me climbing a hill.

Someone is going to watch my legs moving at a 320 BPM with my hands off of the handlebar. I also happen to be putting all of the pressure of my body on my knees and my joints when I'm doing that. But no one cares because speed looks cool.

[10:18] Janet Fitzgerald: There's a muscle called your psoas. And your psoas is what connects your legs up into your back and into your hips. And it's the primary muscle of fight or flight in your body. And so if you're working your psoas as hard as you can, and someone's coaching you through the stakes are so high, this is your life. This is representative of the rest of your day of the rest of your week of the rest of your GD life. How do you want to show up? That is a crazy fight or flight experience. You're running from the tiger for 45 minutes with the lights off. And then you fucking survive. You know, like lights back up you and your pack outran the predator. That's the emotional arc and the adrenaline the chemical arc of what's going on the dopamine high from that has got to be bananas. And of course, if you are stressed out of your mind, that might be the one time in the day that you didn't think about your problems. And if that's not addictive, I don't know what is.

[11:20] Jess Rothschild: The founders would often say that SoulCycle is not a fitness company. It's a hospitality and talent company. No one demanded a higher level of hospitality than riders in the Hamptons.

[11:44] Janet Fitzgerald: I was always told that if you worked in the Hamptons and could like succeed there that you could do whatever you want at SoulCycle. So I was like, well, obviously I should work in the Hamptons then, because if I'm like trying to like fast track my new career, which was one of the reasons I love SoulCycle, is that everything was yes.

[12:03] Jess Rothschild: We met Miles back in episode two.

[12:05] Unknown speaker: He went on to work in the corporate office and oversaw studio openings across the country and it's a very busy specifically for working out because it's there's one road that goes through all of the Hamptons and everybody wants to party all night long and look amazing and like fierce and snatched and skinny and then they want to like roll out of bed hungover and go work out as hard as they can in the morning and then go eat delicious brunch and go to the beach and be wearing as little clothes as possible so obviously I was obsessed with the workouts there because like that's where like the people the waitlists at Bridge Hampton were literally insane like I was physically grabbed one time when I was doing a waitlist for a 930 where I was like, sir, we are not there yet.

Back up to staff the Hamptons soul would pull those managers out of Tribeca or the Upper East Side for the entire summer those managers already knew the clientele they knew how to cultivate this space of yes, we are going to take care of you and provide this luxury experience we know you we see you you're not going to a new place where nobody knows your name even if you were a current employee full-time manager you had to do a separate interview to go out to the Hamptons and it was rounds of interview and instructors would be asked about you and what studio they think you should be at it was quite the process it was literally like applying for a brand new job but with people that you already know and work with.

[13:32] Unknown speaker: Perhaps the best perk for sole employees is when you work in the Hamptons. They put you up in the Hamptons so we lived in the houses and the houses had like pools. We had a budget for food we each had our own car it worked out that we can have our own car so like I would get up early work the check-ins and live that dream and then classes would kind of die down by like 2 p.m. and then I go to the beach every night watch the sunset smoke a bowl with some of the instructors it felt like summer camp. We just worked and played and all the riders would invite us to all their like fun parties because they wanted us to do favors for them at the studio so I'd be like sure let's go to the parties. I ate some at some of the most incredible restaurants and literally watch the beach sunset every single night like the Hamptons it was insane, but I love chaos.

[14:19] Unknown speaker: Meanwhile, 3,000 miles away soul was now open in West Hollywood. Thanks to their partnership with Equinox and it was an absolute scene. Sure famous New Yorkers like Kelly Ripa and Katie Couric were regulars in the city but West Hollywood was drawing an A-list crowd. Oprah celebrated her 60th birthday at SoulCycle. Beyonce and Jay-Z were spotted and Lady Gaga held a fundraiser for her Born This Way Foundation.

[15:01] Lady Gaga: And thank you so much for caring about something that matters so much to me and to my family and to people all over the world. Thank you SoulCycle and thank you on behalf of the Born This Way Foundation and my entire family and all my fans. Thank you.

[15:18] Unknown speaker: In 2014 the company moved miles to open soul in Washington DC where the question on everyone's lips was well is Michelle Obama going to ride? We got to be a part of some really cool events like I moved to DC and immediately I was invited to the White House Christmas party and that's like going to the palace. It's like the Obamas were the king and queen of America at that time. He was invited to the White House Christmas party because he was associated with soul like special things for people like Beyonce where she had like a private ride or like private rides with Michelle Obama was definitely a thing that everybody knew about they just the only people that could attend them were SoulCycle staff and staff of the White House but people knew about those private rides it was pretty insane and then like Tyler Perry had like a secret SoulCycle pop-up on his like Atlanta compound for a little bit where instructors would they would fly out an instructor to like teach for a moment.

[16:22] Unknown speaker: Meanwhile back in New York. It was the instructors themselves who became the center of headlines and gossip. It was cool. And it was the brand we were all hot and fun and wild and like some of us homewreckers and some of us on page six and it was difficult to keep the ego in check. I will say that we teach people how to treat us and you create monsters. You create. Oh, well, I am so adored by this community. I can say whatever the fuck I want. I can do whatever the fuck I want and nobody's gonna call me out on it and it's true until someone does and they did because no there is always the fall and Julie knew that we liked money and she threw us a lot of money not a birthday went by that she forgot we were taken out to these giant dinners and given cash and we were treated like we were like NFL stars the answer was never no. The answer was let's talk about it and it usually happened.

[17:30] Unknown speaker: OG master instructor Stacey Griffith was a staple in page six usually with harmless gossip about her love life but she made headlines at the height of the pandemic after she bragged about getting the vaccine during the window when it was only eligible to those with serious underlying conditions. Page six quoted a former SoulCycle staffers response of quote. It's completely in line with Stacy's character. She operates entirely from a narcissistic standpoint. She has a huge God complex. Stacy apparently applied for the vaccine saying she was a quote educator and later publicly apologized online.

[18:04] Unknown speaker: Elsewhere heterosexual male instructors garnered a reputation for sleeping with their female riders. The most notorious cheating scandal happened when the girlfriend of David Portnoy the founder of Barstool Sports a sports humor website cheated on him with her SoulCycle instructor. Portnoy retaliated by launching a mass online campaign slut-shaming her and trolling SoulCycle under the term cuck cycle. Notably the instructor had a girlfriend of his own a fellow soul instructor. She quit after the scandal broke online. I once saw an instructor walk out of the room in the middle of class and put her arms up in the air for the studio manager to spray her armpits with deodorant which I almost didn't believe it and then you see stuff like good instructors throwing their arms up in the air and yelling about it being too cold in class. I used to love making fun of Janet because her class was always 450,000 degrees I took it one time and I was like how do people do this?

[19:14] Unknown speaker: She would always have the heat on that like 80-something and I remember she used to always come out and this is after we became friendly because I was a little scared of Janet at the beginning because everybody's scared of Janet in the beginning because she gives you like a be scared of me vibe, but she's harmless and amazing. Yeah, so Janet Fitzgerald is a witch and I mean that as the highest compliment. She could perform a spell and you're gonna live the best life you ever live or she'll curse your enemies for you. I look at the senior master instructors at SoulCycle to be wizards and witches. They created magic and emotion the likes of which I haven't seen again.

[19:51] Unknown speaker: But I remember her being like a shoot I was gonna be like it's fucking freezing in here and then like run back in the room and then everybody would have to like run around like oh my god it's cold it's cold and she would come out and I would look at the thermostat and it'd be like 87 degrees and so one time she came out and she's like I'm freezing and I came out of the room with a coat and I was like it's 87 degrees in there we're gonna people are gonna die we're not I'm not turning it up anymore and then the next time she came out like maybe three times that class she like it's fogging up in here it's I don't you bring me that fucking coat miles like but she on the microphone so it's like a lot of the instructors would create this banter with the team as well and bring it into the class energy.

[20:34] Unknown speaker: Miles was integral to building new studios from the inside out sound design acoustics and even a ritual blessing of the studio with crystals. The SoulCycle for acoustics is a box inside of a box because it's so loud and because there's so many bikes it also is for like I guess hydraulics so it's like there's a little box which is a studio that you're in and it's covered it's completely covered by a whole nother box so like that helps with sound it helps with like shock absorbing because I don't know if you've ever noticed inside a room like if it's a full class the rooms can sometimes bounce it's because there's air between the box and the other big box that holds it to protect it from sound and vibrations because those were also some issues in the future of building studio.

[21:35] Unknown speaker: There was real attention set for at least the four years that I was doing this job where like let's set each day up for success and make sure everything is like the brand like the way it looks the way people are being talked to the way the sound is coming out the way instructors are speaking the way the music is playing the way so it's not too loud. I mean even down to like gum making sure everything had the same thing. I mean I ate so much Orbit gum in my almost eight years at SoulCycle that I can't even look at Orbit gum anymore and I went through phases. There's like the pink gum the blue gum the green gum I never want to see pink bubble Orbit gum ever again in my life because I OD'd on their Orbit gum.

[22:30] Unknown speaker: My favorite thing about the SoulCycle was the culture and the history and Elizabeth one of the founders part of her addition to the company and to the brand was this ritual of blessing the studio. I don't know if you ever saw there's like a little crystal behind the bike. The story about the crystal behind the bike is that it's a quartz crystal. I can explain the ritual because this was something that I implemented into my job when I would travel and open all the new studios as I taught every studio we did an opening ride. So after we build the studio now, let's put it together with spirit and so I would lead the blessing of the room before this ride of every new studio I did this for probably like 60 studios in my four years.

Quartz is supposed to take bad energy and cleanse it so all the energy and all of the stuff that you let out in the dark on that bike is supposed to like theoretically go to the quartz let the quartz take your negative energy leave it in the room and get the fuck out and a new person every time so that's like the whole idea behind the quartz taking that energy.

[23:43] Unknown speaker: As we mentioned in the first episode channeling addiction into a healing practice is the most popular path to fitness instructor next to musical theater major people that are in recovery are in shift and my journey was you know 20 years as a fairly serious committed cocaine addict.

[24:00] Hallie Becker: Hallie Becker was a leader in the New York City yoga community before being poached by SoulCycle where she taught for eight years. You look at entertainers you look at dancers singers poets musicians artists. There is always a broken piece which is.

[24:55] Leah Alonzo: The cycle of addiction manifests in multiple ways in the fitness industry. You have instructors channeling demons into a new career, then becoming addicted to the attention they receive. Or clients becoming addicted to the dopamine rush that comes from high-intensity exercise. Others come from an unhealthy relationship with food. But when you cut to the center, any addiction, be it drugs, alcohol, food, or exercise itself, is all about control.

[25:46] Leah Alonzo: The need for extreme experiences, extreme sensations, going all in to a moment, I think that's what we feel when we get a good runner's high, a good workout is also what we feel when we're high on drugs or on stage. So that addiction to intensity that drives people in the fitness profession. I mean, definitely something I've had to look at in my life is like addiction to intensity.

[26:32] Leah Alonzo: I first met Leah 15 years ago when we briefly dated. This was a few years before I discovered SoulCycle and found a mentor in Stevie. Prior to Stevie, Leah was the first person who had the same energy and focus as I did in making the body and spirituality a priority in her life. It's not lost on me that the people I attract have similar characteristics. You might say I love a reformed party girl.

[26:59] Leah Alonzo: Well, when we are running and spinning at varying intensities, we are releasing a lot of happy dopamine chemicals into the brain, which is what addicts also are chasing. It's that dopamine rush, whether you're getting that from sex with a stranger or cocaine. Once you give up that, then the next best thing is the rush of endorphins that are flooding your system when you're doing high intensity exercise. And also when you have the music with it, too, moving with the music, it gives you a sense of peace and connection to something greater. That's why people rave. That's why we go to concerts.

[28:01] Leah Alonzo: The concept of false idols and gurus has been mined extensively in pop culture. Look no further than the recent HBO documentary Breath of Fire, which is basically the story of the Elizabeth Holmes of yoga. I did seek out a guru. I really wanted to find someone who was on another level in yoga, a spiritual god with a human body. I went on this four-month search through India to find a guru. I don't know if it's my hard-headed Jewish, independent woman upbringing, but I didn't find anyone who I felt was like... I found people I could learn from, but I didn't find anyone who I would be like, I surrender myself to you, guru. You know what's best and I'm going to just be your bitch from now on.

[29:49] Leah Alonzo: I actually had a guy in India, a sadhu, and he wanted to start an ashram with me. I had been studying with him for a month. At the end of the month, he was like, if you want to go further on your spiritual journey, I can help you, but through sex. He wanted me to have sex with him. I was like, I'll just stay where I am. I'll just stay where I am. I'm enlightened enough. I'm enlightened enough for now. I'll stay on the karmic wheel.

[30:23] Leah Alonzo: There's a lot of great instructors that didn't, used to be addicts, but even when I think of artists, like David Bowie, my favorite artist in the world, struggled with drugs and alcohol. Artists and people who are dancing on the edge of artistry and genius and expression, if it feels like it's too much or it's too intense, then you can use alcohol or whatever to bring it down to a more palatable, controllable place. There's a lot of layers to it. I also think, why are there so many addicts that are tattooed? Maybe there's a certain sense of needing to feel so intensely again. The drug gave me a feeling of so much intensity. Maybe it's like the needle is doing that.

[30:57] Noah Shaw: I am not model good looking. I'm not even like, I'm character actor good looking. I'm not Brad Pitt. I'm Dennis Franz. And if you're old enough to get that, then congratulations, you win a prize.

[31:30] Noah Shaw: I spoke to Noah about male instructors making a habit of sleeping with their married riders. One instructor was allegedly suspended from the schedule in order to complete rehab for sex addiction. I've had to rely on my life and my stories and my experiences to create a connection. Now, they started hiring really hot guys. And with that great power comes responsibility to not fuck everybody who walks in your room, to not fuck other people's wives. That's disgusting. And as the instructors got younger and less soulful, to turn a phrase, they became more surface, and they became less careful with their actions.

[31:44] Noah Shaw: Prior to fitness, Noah worked in rehab centers in LA, where he helped people struggling with drug and alcohol abuse. There are many forms of recovery these days, but you've got to be actively daily acknowledging, like, I have a problem. I should watch out for this. I also spoke to Noah Shaw about Claire Veronica Walsh and how SoulCycle never addressed her death. You made a point that I found really interesting that given the circumstances of the instructors passing, that there was never any talk of being aware of addiction. I offered myself up to the powers that be. I said, listen, I know this has happened. If anybody wants to talk about it, needs to talk about it, or think they have a problem, let me have a phone and a desk.

I don't need much. And give people an anonymous line. Let me answer phone calls from instructors. And then many instructors went off the deep end, and they lost instructors to alcoholism and drug addiction. Not death, but damn close. So they fired him without giving him help or offering even a resource, not even acknowledge it.

[32:36] Jess Rothschild: Before we break, I am excited to announce we are doing a live show to celebrate Cult of Body and Soul. I will be interviewing Janet Fitzgerald and Hallie Becker together on stage, plus a live concert by the band Betty, whose music is featured at the end of every episode of the series. It's happening on Wednesday, July 9th at 7pm at Joe's Pub here in New York City. Tickets are on sale now. You can find the ticket link in the show notes, and I will see you there.

[33:09] Leah Alonzo: Leah was taking classes all around Manhattan. One day, an instructor just didn't show up, and the other students convinced Leah to teach the class herself. She went on to become certified in group fitness and yoga. Those particular instructors would be all about, like, work hard, play hard, and detox to retox. And that was where I was at in those days, was just, I love to party. I had an identity around being a party girl in New York, and also waking up the next day and going to a fitness class and sweating it all out and doing it again, you know. It was a lot of work, but it was and sweating it all out and doing it again, you know. Going out that night and doing it all over again and being in that cycle. Yeah, if you have an eating disorder or you have an addictive personality, you've been through drugs, you know, it's always like a little devil on your shoulder.

[34:15] Leah Alonzo: If you take enough classes over a number of years, you're bound to observe some crazy shit. One time I was in a yoga class, and the instructor looked really hungover, and they actually left to go throw up, like, in the middle of the class. Twice. Two times he, like, ran out to puke, and we're all just kind of waiting, like, there, like. Also, I was in a class not too long ago in New York, and it was in a gym, and the teacher was teaching pretty advanced Ashtanga series, and I've been practicing yoga for 23 years, various styles. I'm a yoga teacher, and then she made a joke, like, read through your nose as if you're snorting cocaine, and I was like, this is a yoga class. What?

[35:19] Leah Alonzo: The olden days of Leah Party Girl, I would have, like, laughed and thought that was hilarious. I have done coke after a yoga class at 10:30 a.m. I mean, that was me. I've done that, you know. I've been at a festival where I was performing, and it was, like, one of these, kind of, like, half holistic, half rave music festivals, and I went, and I took a yoga class in the morning, and then I met up with a friend, and they were like, hey, you want to do a little bum ski? And I was like, sure, and it was, like, that was my life, so I would have thought that was hilarious in the past, but now as a sober person, and someone who has been, you know, practicing yoga for a long time, I found it pretty jarring and inappropriate to mention drugs in a fitness class.

[36:14] Jess Rothschild: Magazine reported SoulCycle's founders have resigned. Allegedly, they were pushed out due to a culture war between Soul and its new owner, Equinox. Julie and Elizabeth reportedly got a payout of $90 million each. Of course, their third co-founder, Ruth Zuckerman, received nothing.

[36:38] Unknown speaker: I think I was in the bathroom on my phone, doing my best work, scrolling, and I started to cry. I started to cry because I am an entrepreneur. I started my company when I was 23 years old and I know the vibe and the feeling that they wanted, that they brought. They're brilliant. They were so smart to sell when they did. I cried for two reasons, because I knew what was, was over. And I knew what was coming wasn't going to be that. It wasn't going to be that magic. It was going to get lost and it was going to get swallowed up and it was going to get corporate. It was going to be ick. I saw it coming.

[37:20] Unknown speaker: I'll never forget the moment that I learned that Julie and Elizabeth were going to leave. I started combination cry screaming. And I'm like, I came here for her. I came here to build this for her and she's leaving. It was devastating. It was devastating for all of us. It was obviously not Claire's death, but it was like second. We felt abandoned and the company was never the same.

[37:51] Unknown speaker: We paint this picture, right? Because we go like, they were perfect. For sure we were in the back office bitching about something that Julie had done or Elizabeth had said. For sure, because who's ever in authority is getting projected onto. It's never going to be right. It's never going to be the way you would do it. That's just the deal. Also we had gotten so big. Not everybody can get to me. Not everybody can ask me questions and can I start with this jog? Not everybody's on their spiritual A game because they don't have to be. See, when it was smaller, I could threaten their lives. I gave birth to you, I can take you away. It was easier to manage.

[38:36] Unknown speaker: If I can be frank, they tried to be as smooth as possible, but there was no way to avoid the crash of Julie and Elizabeth leaving.

[38:46] Stevie Santangelo: This is Stevie Santangelo, Master Instructor and my SoulCycle Guru. They literally reinvented the wheel. So no matter what, we could have had the Dalai Lama be the next CEO. It would have crashed. They gave us everything we needed. New York City knew what the brand was. Julie and Elizabeth both spoke with us and they talked about the transition and most importantly, Julie said, how's this going to affect you? This is not going to affect you. And then she's, you know, gave us the reasons why it wasn't going to affect you. However, it did.

[39:20] Stevie Santangelo: There was definitely a flavor change when we transitioned into Equinox. During that acquisition, it was really bumpy. So talking about how it felt when Julie stepped down, it was almost as if we were attending a funeral. And a lot of questions, where's the brand going to go? Are we going to be able to maintain this? Who's going to be that person or persons we look up to? I think SoulCycle is so big, it should have been a two-person job. It's just too big. And the magic of those two is one is a masterful talent manager. The other masterful at creating the emotion in the spiritual language. Elizabeth Cutler is the reason why we have the beautiful amethyst at the back of every SoulCycle bike to absorb all kinds of energy that we don't want because a lot of energy is left on the floor. And sometimes an instructor or any leader takes on the energy of the room. And it's not always healthy or good. So they worked very well together. I think it was overwhelming for the next CEO.

[40:25] Stevie Santangelo: Melanie Whelan was appointed to be the new CEO after working closely with Julie and Elizabeth as chief operating officer. She was previously the head of business development for Equinox proper.

[40:38] Stevie Santangelo: Melanie Whelan's style of leadership was, I think, too far a step away from Julie and Elizabeth. Too far a step. She came from the world of Equinox and related, and it felt that way. The culture of SoulCycle was always one of inclusion and diversity. We do pride rides. We did, you know, black history, everything. We just automatically did them. The change in SoulCycle leadership was most profoundly felt during the 2016 presidential election and its aftermath.

[41:11] Stevie Santangelo: The 2016 election was a time where New York City, for the most part, went dark. There were tumbleweeds rolling down NoHo and grown adults sobbing that morning. And Becky taught before me, Ben taught before her, and then I had to teach. And the room was solemn. There was nothing to say. And we received an email from her that was, quite frankly, one of the most tone-deaf things I'd ever read. And in it, it talked about, we can't say anything controversial. We're not there to share any opinions. We have to look and make sure we give the rider everything that they needed. And what she actually said was, don't rock the boat or piss anybody off. She was thinking about them and not us.

[42:02] Stevie Santangelo: Employee morale nearly collapsed in 2016 between the timing of Julie and Elizabeth's departure, the election and the personal politics of their new CEO, Melanie Whelan. Equinox tasked her with significantly expanding the brand. And so it went from something like, 30 or 40 studios to 90, 99 in a matter of like a two or three year span. That's crazy. And it's crazy because you can talk about a company that sells a product, a dry good, right? That you go and pick up and great, that's easy. I'll pick it up. It doesn't change the quality of the product, right? When you have to churn out instructors, more instructors, instructors, instructors, you know, training groups every four weeks or whatever it may be like that is really tough thing to do because the question is, is there that much talent out there, right? Or can you churn out that much talent?

[43:05] Unknown speaker: John Stein, Hallie Becker and Janet Fitzgerald. I mean, you can't be successful and fill your room when there is a studio at 63rd, 54th, 42nd, 72nd. I mean, you can do the math here. They were just, they were like nail salons. They were just popping up, you know? And again, the top teachers, it didn't matter. They could teach in fucking Timbuktu and their classes would sell out. But us normal, still unicorny, but normal teachers, you know, it started to really impact our class size because there were too many classes, too many studios, too many teachers. And then now you've got this corporate acquisition. So they're even looking even closer at the bottom line. And also you don't have the same quality control that you've had where you had your anchor locations, right?

You had New York, you had LA, DC, Boston. Once you start to like expand this like very, very unique experience to Tampa, to Seattle, to the suburbs in Virginia, it gets much, much more difficult to make sure that the quality remains as high as it always was. We did everything we could to keep the integrity. But the truth is, is I just don't think that anything that big can. Is it possible to do that on such a mass scale? I don't know. The answer is no, you cannot scale exclusivity.

[44:37] Unknown speaker: Reckoning with that man becoming our president was insane. But what I think it opened up internally was this idea of like, oh, SoulCycle isn't political, like don't bring up politics in classes. And on a personal level, I think everything is political. I think that what SoulCycle cultivated was a very queer space, but queer in the general idea of what fitness was for a really long time. And gyms were such a masculine environment. I think SoulCycle being founded by women, being created as that space for women, and eventually a lot of my queer friends, that was their safest space of a workout too. And that to me is inherently political. You are creating a space for a population of people. Whether that was the intention or not, that's who's showing up. And to kind of try to cut off that reality of who is our president, who was elected and pretend like that's not the problem. It was really tough.

[45:41] Unknown speaker: The contrast between the reverence employees had for Julie and Elizabeth versus the new CEO is striking. I can tell you no matter how tired instructors were, we raced to the West Village to have our instructor meeting with Julie and Elizabeth. They would both speak. And always, always began by thanking us and telling us that we wore the brand on our backs. They said we wore the brand on our backs and they proved it by paying us.

[46:14] Unknown speaker: But now instructors were left in the hands of a company and leader who had different interests at play. The resentments with her started legitimately. Where is our wellness room? Where is our meeting? Or can we just be somewhere at corporate on those cute beanbag chairs, having some tea and hugging it out? We were the ones who had to go out there and perform at a time where we internally were broken hearted ourselves. Our CEO did not have her fucking backs. She's running around getting vegan muffins and giving people expensive handbags and taking credit of the things that Julie and Elizabeth did.

[46:51] Unknown speaker: One of the meetings that we had, instructor meetings, we brought up, how do we deal with riders that are wearing MAGA hats or gear into class? Because some people did. As an instructor, I could not ask you to remove your hat. The rider would wear that hat front and center all the time. And it felt like a provocation. And we were muted, thanks to that email, where we can't say anything controversial. We can't ask her to remove the hat. We don't want to quote, unquote, rock the boat. And you know what it was? You didn't have our fucking backs.

[47:29] Unknown speaker: Glory, glory, hallelujah, praise the fact that outrageous rebellions start with everyday acts. On a bridge, on a bus, or under attack. Stronger together, we will never, never, never go back. Cult of Body and Soul is created, executive produced, and narrated by Jess Rothschild. Sound design by Caitlin White. Theme song and original music composed by Elizabeth Ziff. Gangway, by the band Betty.