A $50-million fitness empire by 32: Inside Tammy Hembrow’s next chapter

On the day we speak, fitness entrepreneur Tammy Hembrow is sitting inside her car on Main Beach on the Gold Coast watching her three children, all under 12, use the nearby playground equipment.

For someone who was told falling pregnant as a 20-year-old would be the end of life as she knew it, Hembrow, 32, is having the last laugh. “I had a lot of people telling me when I first fell pregnant that it would ruin my life, ruin my body, and affect me in so many ways,” she reflects. “Everyone really got in my head about it, but I was determined to prove them wrong.”

Indeed, her life took a stratospheric turn after she had her first child – just not in the way many imagined. During those early post-pregnancy months, she turned to social media to document her personal fitness journey and physical recovery. That candid sharing resonated with millions and set her on an extraordinary path towards success.

“In the beginning I was documenting my life and working out; health and fitness was very much a huge part of that,” she recalls. “It attracted a lot of people who saw themselves in me – and there were a lot of negative connotations about young mums: this view that it ruins everything. I was all about showing people that it really doesn’t – and you can reclaim yourself and still be you.”

Today, Hembrow boasts more than 16.2 million followers on Instagram alone. Last year, having built a $50 million fitness empire over the course of a decade – including her first business, Tammy Fit, launched in 2017 – she was named in the prestigious AFR Young Rich List.

That discipline and inner drive to succeed might be deeply embedded in her DNA. “I’ve always been very stubborn, ever since I was very young,” she says. “I was never content with no. I always wanted to do things my way.”

But with fame came relentless headlines and intense public scrutiny. A deep dive into the world of Hembrow shows an almost constant obsession around her, spanning from the time she was taken out on an ambulance stretcher from Kylie Jenner’s 21st birthday in West Hollywood back in 2018 to her evolving relationship status. While the surrounding media circus can feel endless, Hembrow says she’s learned to take little notice of the haters and headlines nowadays.

“I’ve had trolls since day one – that is nothing new to me and I continue to have them,” she says. “I’ve had a couple of very public relationships and they’ve been picked apart, but I am in a good relationship now. I learned a lot from each of them, and am now at a point where I know what I want. I’m really happy with the people in my life and what I have going on and my partner is a wonderful addition to that.”

This current partner is 23-year-old model Grayson Te Moana. He’s nine years her junior, but she chirpily adds she’s “never been happier”.

Before meeting Te Moana, Hembrow had been twice engaged and once married and divorced. She was first engaged to fellow influencer and fitness trainer Reece Hawkins from 2014 to 2018, and they share two children, Wolf, 11, and Saskia, 9. She also has a daughter, Posy, 4, with ex-fiancé and athlete Matt Poole. Then came her short-lived marriage to Love Island contestant Matt Zukowski, which ended abruptly in 2025 after seven months.

“When I went through my divorce, I was so overwhelmed,” she says. “I don’t always make the best choices, but I do learn from my past. I am at a point now where I have let go of the heavy stuff and am going in a new direction. I used to draw energy from the wrong things and now I am more present.”

With so much life experience behind her, Hembrow is ready to try something new, as she steps into her first TV hosting gig, assuming the role of “house boss” on the next season of Aussie Shore.

The reality TV show is certainly not for the faint-hearted. Based in a lively Gold Coast share house, partying and nudity are rampant. But the contestants on the show adore Hembrow, which is hardly surprising as she is, after all, the poster girl for Gold Coast fitness and healthy living.

Born on the Gold Coast in 1994, Hembrow is the third child to actor father Mark Hembrow and mother Nathalie Stanley. Her parents split when she was very young, and she was raised by her father in Queensland’s idyllic Currumbin Valley.

Her mum, who is originally from Trinidad and Tobago, later married a businessman from Singapore. Along with her two older sisters, Emilee and Amy, this is where Tammy lived between the ages of 12 and 16.

“My parents had a difficult relationship and Mum was also quite a bit younger than my dad,” Hembrow explains. “A huge turning point in my life was going to live with her. Mum and my stepdad lived in a five-storey house, had chefs, and I had never seen so much wealth before. I was like, ‘Wow, can people have that?’ That’s when I said, ‘I am going to do that for me.’ ”

Her mother has since relocated from Singapore and moved into Hembrow’s Gold Coast home to help with the grandchildren for a while. This arrangement allows Hembrow to try mastering the elusive work-life balance, which for her means growing her fitness empire, maintaining her social-media pace, and being present for her family.

Hembrow says she can’t remember her life before social media: she’s been firmly in the public eye for more than 12 years. But there’s a sense that she’s keen to scale it back, to prioritise her family, and to only say yes to work that genuinely aligns with her lifestyle.

She has plans to move out into the Queensland hinterland, to find a large block where she can raise her kids and have animals. She’s a devoted Christian, but pushing her religious point of view has never been her priority. For all the sexed-up personas in her social posts, there’s a more humbling narrative that comes across in conversation. “I am a religious and spiritual person, and not a lot of people know that about me,” she says. “I’m Christian and believe in God. My kids actually read the Bible every single day. I don’t try to be preachy. It’s something for me that I express at home.”

In her downtime, she’s happiest bingeing on reality TV shows, loves true-crime podcasts and gets out into nature for daily walks. “I am very much like my dad, I love being outdoors and in nature,” she says. “As I am getting older, I’m leaning towards a bit of a slower life. I want my kids to have the lifestyle I had growing up with Dad. I’m still ambitious and have goals and love what I do, but I am chasing different dreams now. Before, I was very much go, go, go.”

Hembrow has plans to take the kids to Europe next year – and recalls taking them to Positano, Italy, a few years ago. As she recalls, steep clifftops and toddlers don’t go hand in hand.

Hers might be a world built on content creation, but these days Hembrow is all about putting down the phone to experience life to the fullest. Yet, while social media is no longer her everything, it is still part of her every day. As she admits, “The truth is I can’t really picture my life without it.”

Aussie Shore Season 3 is streaming on Paramount+ from October 22.

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