Jackie Warner Reveals Why She and Jillian Michaels Ultimately Broke Up
Jackie Warner from Bravo‘s Work Out shared more details about her tumultuous relationship with fitness trainer Jillian Michaels from The Biggest Loser.
Warner said Michaels kept the fact she was gay a secret on The Biggest Loser because the network was worried she would alienate her audience. So later, when Michaels wrote about past relationships, she would refer to Warner as “John.” Warner also shared what broke them up after they had dated for years, admitting she couldn’t take Michaels any longer.
Jackie Warner said Jillian Michaels referred to her as ‘John’ in her book
Warner described how Michaels did “weird things” after they broke up. “Like she wrote about me a lot in her first book from her perspective,” Warner said on the Hot Takes & Deep Dives with Jess Rothschild podcast.
“Ways that I emotionally and verbally abused her,” Warner continued. “But she changed my name and called me John. Because she was so afraid of being outed. Jillian didn’t come out until after The Biggest Loser, because they said you better not. Cause a lot of middle Americans, Republicans, and conservative people love Biggest Loser because they also are obese and they like to see the challenges and so on and so forth. So she couldn’t come out to talk about it.”
Warner recalled that she and Michaels remained friends after they had broken up. “But then we would also get into terrible breakdown in communications,” she said. “And then hate each other. And right now she hates me and I’m not a fan of hers.” Warner added she doesn’t hate anybody but she doesn’t like who Michaels is as a person.
She helped Jillian Michaels after she got caught cheating on ‘The Biggest Loser’
Warner said Michaels cheated on The Biggest Loser which turned her off. “I mean, I’m the one who got her out of so many things like cheating,” she recalled. “I’ll tell you that. And they caught her. She was freaked out about it. Like they’re going to fire me. I’m over.”
Warner recalled inviting the network executives to her gym and made a power move that ended up getting Michaels off the hook. But added, “She knew she was in the wrong, she knew she cheated,” Warner said. “And I knew she cheated and she admitted it to me.”
She got right to the point, “And guess what? I got her to sign for a third season,” Warner remarked. “And I did things like that for her all the time.” So where does this antagonistic relationship come from? “She now thinks that I emotionally and verbally abused her,” Warner said.
Warner also said she put Michaels up for The Biggest Loser, which Michaels disputed. “I haven’t spoken to Jackie in nearly two decades,” she told US Weekly. “I’ve always wished her the best. I recommend you simply fact check her claims. The truth is pretty easy to come by.”
Jillian Michaels ‘wasn’t a good girl,’ Jackie Warner said
Warner recalled their age difference had an impact on their relationship. Plus, she was in a different place career-wise when she meet Michaels. “I think the fact that I was 27 or so I met her and well along and my career in the entertainment industry and I had done stuff,” she recalled. “And I think she was 21. She was working as a bartender. Like when I first came over from a date and we first slept together in her apartment and she didn’t have sheets on the bed.”
Michaels had a tough childhood, Warner said, and she was still very young when they met. Warner added that she gave Michaels opportunities every step of the way. “But the age difference and her making really bad decisions and quite frankly, her just not being a good girl, she just wasn’t a good girl,” Warner said. “And I did bad things, but I’ve always been a good girl.”
Even working out with clients, Warner claimed Michaels would be “screaming, loud, cursing.” Plus, “We’d get thrown out of nice restaurants because she was screaming loud, cursing, and I couldn’t take it. I just was not the same. I mean, she used to spit on people,” she recalled. Eventually, Warner said, “I couldn’t live with her. I couldn’t stand to hear her breathe in bed. I mean, it got so bad when she got on my nerves so much that I could not do day to day with her.”
