Kayla Itsines and her ex-fiance Tobi Pearce. Photo / Instagram@Kaylaitsines
Kayla Itsines and her ex-fiance Tobi Pearce. Photo / Instagram@Kaylaitsines
Australian fitness influencer Kayla Itsines has opened up for the first time about her breakup with Tobi Pearce.
Itsines was in a relationship with Pearce, who was also her business partner, for eight years. They got engaged in 2018 and welcomed a daughter, Arna, together in 2019, before their shock announcement in 2020 that they had split up.
Since then, the fitness star has stayed silent on the reasons behind the split, saying only that she and Pearce would “always be family, and remain good friends and devoted parents to Arna”.
But now the 32-year-old has admitted she has “no idea” how she and Pearce got together in the first place, opening up in a new interview with the Australian Financial Review.
They first met when Pearce suggested they team up as personal trainers to sell a fitness program, the Bikini Body Guide, followed by health and exercise app SWEAT. They later sold the app to US company iFIT for around $400 million in 2021.
They even appeared on the AFR’s Young Rich List in 2016 at the ages of 24 and 25 with a combined wealth of $46m. The pair ranked in tenth place on the list by 2019 with a total fortune of $486m.
But now Itsines says that Pearce was “money-driven, business-minded”, while she was “creative” and “there for people”.
“We are the polar opposite of one another. I look back and I think, ‘I have no idea how that all happened’,” she told the publication.
Australian fitness guru Kayla Itsines and partner Tobi Pearce duting their baby shower. Photo / Instagram
“I couldn’t have done it without him and he couldn’t have done it without me, but … I still have no idea how it all happened.”
Itsines also said that “nothing about my previous relationship was easy”.
“I never let it show. It’s not who I am. I am known as a friend, someone who is positive and upbeat …[But] it was always hard. It was always a battle.
“I really don’t think, stepping back and looking at my years with Tobi, that we were anything alike. I’m a fixer. I want to make [sure] your day is the best day possible. I want to make sure if you are in my house, you feel warm and comfortable and loved. That’s me.
“Tobi came to me with no family, no sense of that. I thought, ‘I can fix you’. He told me, ‘We’re dating. Now we’re starting a business. Now we’re doing this’.”
The fitness star is now engaged to Jae Woodroffe, after the couple welcomed their first child together, son Jax, in January.
At the time Itsines shared on Instagram, “Words absolutely cannot describe this feeling. We are SO HAPPY RIGHT NOW.
“We went into hospital around 6:30am on the 5th of January. He was out in the world by 8:45am weighing 3.5 kgs.
“The most amazing thing, as he was coming out, out of nowhere on a completely random playlist the hospital was playing, Jae’s dad’s funeral song started playing over the speakers. I heard Jae say at the same time, ‘It’s a boy!!!!!’
“I burst into tears, he burst into tears and we got meet our baby BOY Jax Stokes Woodroffe.”
