Jillian Michaels left California — fed up by the way the state was being run — but she’s never stopped caring about Los Angeles, the city where she was born and raised.
“It’s the state with the highest cost of living. Highest gas prices, highest income tax, the highest housing, highest rent, highest everything. And people get nothing for the money they’re paying,” she exclusively told the California Post.
The health and wellness expert blames Governor Gavin Newsom in a big way, calling him a “true sociopath” and “the quintessential politician” who “tries to be something to everyone … which just shows you how totally inauthentic the guy is.”
Michaels, 52, who moved her family to Wyoming in 2021, is furious about last year’s wildfires which destroyed thousands of homes, many of which are yet to be rebuilt, and points to infrastructure failures including the Santa Ynez Reservoir, which was empty at the time of the fires.
She criticizes Newsom after he vetoed SB 326 in October 2025, a bill intended to enhance wildfire prevention through stricter, updated, and proactive forest management planning.
“Billions are lost or mismanaged. The state burns down every five seconds and it’s absolutely manageable. And yet, everything is done wrong… but it’s so obvious how to fix it.
“You should have not vetoed the bill for forestry management,” she said.
She also claims the governor is a shill for the Pacific Gas and Electric company (PG&E) — “one of the top contributors to his campaign” — as he granted the company a safety certificate in February 2022, allowing it to recover costs for wildfire damages from ratepayers.
Newsom and his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, have accepted at least $700,000 in donations from PG&E, according to the book, “Fool’s Gold: The Radicals, Con Artists, and Traitors Who Killed the California Dream and Now Threaten Us All.” PG&E are listed as an associate producer on two of Siebel Newsom’s films.
After a downed PG&E power line caused the Camp Fire in northern California, which burned more than 153,000 acres, leveling 13,500 homes and killing 85 people, Newsom was accused by the “Fools Gold” authors of giving the utility company a massive break.
“Far from holding the massive utility accountable, Newsom spearheaded a legislative bankruptcy deal that allowed the utility to continue operating, then signed $21 billion in new insurance protections for PG&E into law,” authors Susan Crabtree and Jedd McFatter wrote.
Newsom’s office claims he has done more than any previous California governor to hold PG&E accountable, and says he has not accepted any donations from them since becoming governor in 2018.
The host of the “Keeping It Real: Conversations with Jillian Michaels” podcast also raises questions about California’s budget management, citing “24 billion [dollars spent] on a homeless crisis that’s grown by 30%”
A 2024 California state audit did reveal that the state spent nearly $24 billion on homelessness over five years, yet failed to track whether the program was even effective, according to CBS.
“When Gavin Newsom very possibly becomes president, what in the f–k is going to happen then?” she asks. Newsom is widely expected to run for President in 2028.
Michaels identifies as center-right. She has stated she does not follow any party tribally, but voted for Donald Trump in 2024 as a “lesser evil” choice, without endorsing him.
Liberal politics has gottten “out of control” in California, she said. “It’s not working …The homeless problem only continues to grow. Billions are lost or mismanaged.”
She also accuses Newsom of failing to stop China buying land in California. In September 2022, Newsom vetoed a bipartisan bill, Senate Bill 1084 (SB 1084), that would have prohibited foreign governments —specifically mentioning those from prohibited countries like China — from purchasing, acquiring, or leasing agricultural land in California.
“This is what I mean when I tell you he is far and away, in my opinion, more corrupt than any mayor, than any Governor I have ever experienced in my lifetime,” she said. “And even when you look at his relationship with China, go back to when he was the mayor of San Francisco… they would clear out the red tape for these guys to do what they wanted.”
In particular, she recalled Newsom’s relationship with Vincent Lo, chairman of the Shui On Group, a large China developer. In 2006, Lo hosted Newsom in Shanghai and Newsom went on to set up ChinaSF, an initiative that established San Francisco as the primary gateway for Chinese investment and business expansion into the United State.
“In the meantime, Californians can’t rebuild after a fire,” said Michaels.
So how did the fitness trainer from NBC’s “The Biggest Loser” – best known for for her intense motivational catchphrase, “Unless you puke, faint, or die, keep going!” — become one of the most outspoken voices?
Like everything in her life, it started with health.
“The narratives are telling you we should have sex changes for kids, being obese is healthy and COVID came from eating bats,” Michaels says, recalling the pandemic era from 2020 to 2022.
“And you’re just going, ‘this is bulls—t. This is not true.’ Then I started to see this crazy censorship online of people who were skeptical of vaccinations. And I’m not actually an anti-vaxxer, but when you start to shut down people asking questions, that’s alarming.
“So I’m watching all of these dominoes fall and living in Gavin Newsom’s California. Now I’m paying attention. And you’re seeing this guy going to dinner at [upscale restaurant] the French Laundry while he is telling people they can’t spend the holidays with their family, and California’s the last state to reopen the schools.”
“I lost a home in the Woolsey fire in 2018, and I watched what he did to essentially let PG&E off the hook. And at that point, I’m in it, I’m in the fight.”
Michaels says she’s “uniquely positioned” through her work and experience to tackle issues like gender affirming care for gender dysphoric kids, pointing out her 2009 book, “Master Your Metabolism,” was co-authored with leading endocrinologist Mariska van Aalst.
“So I have some understanding of what would happen to a developing child if you were to interrupt puberty, forget if they’re trans or not.”
She now lives in Wyoming with her wife, fashion designer DeShanna Marie Minuto, whom she wed in 2022, and co-parents her kids — daughter Lukensia, 15, who is adopted from Haiti, and son Phoenix, 13, whom she has with former partner Heidi Rhoades.
If Michaels’ own children thought they were transgender, she says, she would seek advice from experts on how they should socially transition.
“But what I am a hundred percent sure of is, I would never let them medically transition as long as I could prevent it while they are minors — because of what it does, because it’s irreparable, and because of the damage it does to their developing bones, and brain,” she said.
Michaels supports Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for his overhaul of US nutrition policy, where he campions prioritizing proteins, healthy fats, and full-fat dairy, while drastically reducing consumption of refined carbohydrates, processed foods, and added sugars.
“Whether you like him or not, the reality is the food pyramid shift is not about telling you and I what to eat. It’s about redirecting the subsidy flows,” she says, referring to JFK Jr.’s move to end subsidies for junk food and sugary drinks via federal programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
Still, Michaels insists that the essential beliefs she held before 2020 have not changed. She has always been in favor of gay marriage, abortion access and immigration reform.
So would Michaels ever run for office herself?
“People keep thinking, I’m gonna run ….(but) you have to sell your soul. You have to pander. And you watch Gavin Newsom, he panders to everyone. He’ll go sit with [podcaster] Ben Shapiro and tell him that Immigration and Cusoms Enforcement (ICE) isn’t the Gestapo. And then he will go to the World Economic Forum (WEF) and tell everybody ICE is the Gestapo.”
Newsom spoke to Shapiro on his podcast in January and said ICE are not “terrorists.” The same month he spoke at the WEF Forum in Davos and called ICE a “police state” tactic and a “secret police” force.
“He tries to be something to everyone, which is just shows you how totally inauthentic the guy is. But he’s the quintessential politician. He is a true sociopath,” Michaels said.
Still, she doesn’t just want to sit on the sidelines.
“I wanna amplify the messages of people who I think have integrity in the space” — like Casey DeSantis, the First Lady of Florida, a breast cancer survivor who is fighting for the removal of arsenic and other heavy metals from the food products. “She’s like, ‘I did eight rounds of chemo, Jillian, I never want another young mom to have to go through this. How is this stuff allowed in our food?’ I wanna help her.
As much as Michaels is annoyed by the Democrats, she thinks all sides have to unite for a better California.
“I just think if a Democrat wants to win, they should come forward and they should say, ‘Okay guys, we’re gonna work across party lines to come to some solutions with regard to immigration, abortion. This is gonna be uncomfortable’. And the reality is, in a good negotiation, nobody gets everything they want, but [where we’re at now is] tearing the country apart.”