Tammy Hembrow: Country girl turned multi-millionaire fitness influencer

Tammy Hembrow, mother-of-three, appeared on Australian Financial Review's How I Made It podcast, where she detailed her climb to the top. Photo / Instagram

Fitness influencer Tammy Hembrow has made a name for herself on social media with a clothing line and workout app to go with it.

But the 28-year-old, who is now worth an estimated AU$38 million (NZ$42 million), grew up in a rural area with only 80 kids in her entire school, lived in an old wedding reception venue with tables for walls and had to take baths outside.

The mother-of-three appeared on Australian Financial Review's How I Made It podcast, where she detailed her climb to the top.

"After I lived with my dad, I decided I would move to Singapore with my mum and stepdad. It was the complete opposite to what I had been living. My stepdad was extremely successful and they were living this life of luxury," Hembrow said.

She said it was unlike anything she had seen up close before, and had only seen in the movies.

Tammy added it was the first moment that inspired her to strive for success so, after returning to Australia, she enrolled in a Bachelor of Business at Bond University.

She didn't love the degree until she did a class on entrepreneurship but it wasn't long before she discovered she was pregnant with son, Wolf, and had to drop out.

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"It was a big surprise – at the time I had just started to see social media – it was nothing like it is now, and I had started to tap into it. I was starting to post glimpses of my life but then I got pregnant and it turned everything around on its head.

"People around me were telling me I'd ruined my life but I took that and made people see the opposite," she said.

Tammy said around the same time she was starting her love for health and fitness and, when she fell pregnant, she was concerned people would stigmatise her as a young mum as she was only 20 when she had her son.

But sharing her pregnancy online helped her grow her following, showing people her work in the gym and defying stereotypes.

She noticed people were excited about her journey so she created PDF documents with fitness programs to share and sell to others.

Tammy paid someone just $400 to illustrate the exercises and – after selling the PDFs for a while – the TammyFit app was eventually born.

"I was using different apps for meals and workouts and I wanted everything in one place to give my users as much as possible out of the experience," she said.

Tammy, who has 15.4 million followers on Instagram, charges app users $100 a year to use the app and since it launched in 2018, there have been 2.5 million downloads.

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Following the app launch, and the birth of her daughter Saskia, Tammy decided it was time to start a new business and created her own activewear label Saski Collection with her sister Amy.

As the years progress, Tammy said people often pigeonhole her as simply an influencer but the mum-of-three said she is a mother and runs two successful businesses so she is more than meets the eye.

Tammy recently had her third child, baby Posy, in June with fiance Matt Poole.