Pvolve says Rachel Katzman is the 'visionary' behind the fitness juggernaut. Others say she's cashing in on her ex's creation.

Stephen Pasterino wanted his Bosu Balls back.

On August 13, 2022, Pasterino arrived at the SoHo flagship of Pvolve, the trendy fitness business he'd founded five years earlier. Pasterino, a chiseled trainer with puppydog eyes, hadn't visited the studio since he and his cofounder, Rachel Katzman, had divorced in 2020. He walked past the cursive "your personal evolution starts here" sign in the entryway, past the racks of Pvolve-branded leggings and hats, past the VIP-only elevator for celebrity clients. He took his workout equipment (two Bosu Balls, two Core Boards), and left.

A Pvolve employee called 911. Six days later, Pasterino was arrested.

In a defamation lawsuit filed the next year, Pasterino said the arrest was part of a "malicious and vindictive" smear campaign that he blamed on his wealthy ex-wife, who'd become the majority owner of Pvolve after she and Pasterino split. Since their divorce, Katzman, a wafer-thin 32-year-old, has been hailed as "the visionary behind the Pvolve brand" by the company and earned a spot on Inc.'s 2023 list of female founders. Pasterino, on the other hand, has gone from owning 80% of Pvolve to 5%. (Pvolve and Katzman denied wrongdoing in response to the lawsuit, and the case was settled out of court.)

Pvolve launched in 2017 as a series of strengthening and sculpting classes that promised to make members look like the Victoria's Secret Angels whom Pasterino used to train. Influencers and models flocked to the brand, purchasing its 13-piece bundle of workout gear for more than $620 and taking classes in moodily lit studios in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Three years after Pasterino was pushed out, Jennifer Aniston joined as an advisor and owner. The company, which streams classes online and has more than a dozen workout studios, plans to open hundreds more around the world.

But for some longtime fans, there is no Pvolve without Pasterino. When Katzman and Pasterino were married, they seemed like the perfect power couple: He had the personal-training experience, and she had the entrepreneurial drive. It didn't hurt that her father, SmileDirectClub's billionaire CEO, David Katzman, bankrolled the company. In Pasterino's complaint, he argued that his father-in-law manipulated him into surrendering his majority stake in the months before his divorce. Pasterino came from nothing, someone close to him said, and was forced to watch his ex-wife cash in on the business he created.

"It was Stephen's brainchild — it was his company," Laura Quintana, a former Pvolve model, told BI. "It was basically stolen from him." But others say without Katzman steering the business, Pvolve would never have achieved the success it enjoys today.

"Stephen was very charismatic. I think he was a good trainer, but I think as Pvolve decided to become more science-backed and sort of grow up," it needed new leadership, an employee who left in 2022 said. "Ultimately, it was probably the best thing for the business for Pvolve and for Stephen to go their separate ways."

In a letter to BI, J. Erik Connolly, a lawyer for Pvolve, wrote that Pvolve and its leadership "are proud of Pvolve's successes" and called Katzman an "innovative, successful businesswoman."

"Pvolve," Connolly wrote, "believes in its innovative, problem-solving fitness solutions for women, by women."

Pasterino, now 37, was born in the small town of Hammonton, New Jersey, the self-proclaimed blueberry capital of the world. His mother worked as a cocktail waitress at a casino in Atlantic City. Growing up, Pasterino worked out primarily to impress girls on the Jersey Shore. When he moved to New York in his mid-20s, he cleaned weights at an Equinox gym before becoming a personal trainer. His Instagram account straddled the line between sensitive artist and fitness fuckboy, with John Mayer and Nietzsche quotes posted alongside photos in which he flexed shirtless.

Katzman, meanwhile, was raised in a sprawling six-bedroom home in Franklin, Michigan. Her father launched a number of niche businesses in the '80s and '90s, including the contact-lens company Lens1st and the home-decor brand National Blinds and Wallpaper. Home Depot bought his holding company, DeeKay Enterprises, in 1997. But David's big break was Quicken Loans, a multibillion-dollar mortgage company founded by his cousin, Dan Gilbert , now the richest man in Michigan. David invested in his cousin's company, and in the early 2000s Gilbert named him vice chairman. The cousins had aspirations beyond the Detroit suburbs , partnering with the R&B icon Usher to buy a stake in the Cleveland Cavaliers, making Gilbert the team's majority owner . In 2008, David launched his own venture-capital firm, Camelot Venture Group.

Around the dinner table in the early 2000s, David Katzman would quiz his kids about their dream startups. Rachel Katzman was just starting high school when her brother, Jordan, founded his first company — a car-detailing business — at 16. Katzman has said her own childhood was more debaucherous, describing her late teens as her "wild years" in a recent interview. Scrolling back far enough on her social media reveals a party-girl era of blurry photos and fingernails decorated with tiny stripper poles. Katzman moved to New York at 18 to go to The New School, but she attended only a single day of classes before dropping out. After six months of lying to her parents about being enrolled, Katzman moved back to Michigan when they discovered the truth.

Entrepreneurial inspiration finally struck on Katzman's 21st-birthday trip to Las Vegas. After being sprayed with Champagne, Katzman woke to discover that her hair was incredibly bouncy and shiny. It was a lightbulb moment for Katzman, who began decanting Champagne in a spray bottle to douse her hair. In 2015 she launched a "Champagne-infused hair product line" called Cuvée Beauty, backed by her father's firm. That same year, she met Pasterino.

Pasterino started working at ModelFit after meeting its cofounder Justin Gelband in an elevator on the way to CPR training. ModelFit quickly became the hottest fitness studio in New York, beloved by leggy "it" girls like Taylor Swift and Karlie Kloss. Pasterino was one of the first employees and grew close to the founders, Gelband and the stylist turned nutritionist Vanessa Packer. GQ even dubbed him the "ass-master" for his glute-toning expertise.

When Katzman arrived at her first personal-training session with Pasterino, she was immediately smitten. "I had a really big crush on him," Katzman said on a 2019 episode of The Skinny Confidential. "He was very closed off at work, and I think I tried everything."

Someone who worked with Pasterino at the time said that Katzman would bring him lunch and buy him massages, but that the trainer wanted to avoid crossing professional boundaries. ( This person, and 12 others who worked with Pasterino and the Katzmans, asked to remain anonymous to avoid professional repercussions.) Finally, Katzman persuaded Pasterino to join her for a trip to her mother's house in the Hamptons. From that moment on, the pair was "inseparable," Katzman said.

Pasterino's colleague recalled him showing up at ModelFit with a spray tan paid for by Katzman. He posted photos of himself training Katzman around the world, doing lunges on a private jet and stretching at The Beverly Hills Hotel. The couple moved into a $7.5 million apartment with 3 ½ bathrooms and floor-to-ceiling windows.

"I think he really fell in love with the lifestyle that she offered him," Pasterino's former colleague said. "When you're going from sharing an apartment with someone and working eight to 12 hours a day and grinding to — oh, come live in my loft" in SoHo, "and fly private with me and we'll go to Ibiza for the summer and then the Hamptons." She added, "I think that he got really glamored by it all."

But Pasterino told people close to him that he felt as though Katzman's father didn't approve of his daughter dating a personal trainer. In 2016, Pasterino started his first company: Bodies by P, a gym in SoHo. The gym was mostly self-funded, according to the 2023 complaint, but Katzman's mother (who'd divorced David years earlier) was among those who gave Pasterino money for the project.

The same year Pasterino founded Bodies by P, he proposed to Katzman during a trip to France on the steps featured in Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris." The two married in 2017 at a TriBeCa event space drenched in white. There were hundreds of white hydrangeas and calla lilies, a white baby grand piano, and a white carpeted aisle that Katzman said was inspired by a Chanel runway. Katzman wore a Vera Wang dress, her hair in a 26-inch ponytail. After the ceremony, the 240 guests headed into another massive room with dancers clad in gold paint and little else. The couple flew their favorite DJ in from Ibiza for the occasion.

The wedding (#ThePrincessandtheP), served as a brilliant marketing opportunity for Katzman and Pasterino. A Coveteur article stated that Katzman "didn't just use champagne to toast at her wedding — she also wore it in her hair." In homage to Bodies by P, Katzman said it "only felt natural" to end the night in white leggings and a sports bra. Pasterino wrote about Katzman's pre-wedding diet and workout regimen in his fitness blog, extolling the benefits of intermittent fasting and exercises to tone her armpits.

"I've been gradually taking her body somewhere she hadn't thought possible for a while now," Pasterino wrote.

"In the end," he added, "we accomplished all of our goals."

Pasterino launched Pvolve, originally styled P.Volve, a few months after the wedding.

The backbone of Pvolve is a series of tiny movements meant to lengthen and tone muscles — like those in the inner thighs — that most people don't know exist. The name stems from Pasterino's nickname, "P.," which he has tattooed on his wrist. Early fans were won over by Pasterino's ability to make classes feel like personal physical-therapy appointments. Cynthia Hannah told BI that Pasterino's take on "functional fitness," which focused on strength exercises for everyday life rather than vanity, persuaded her to pay $300 for a lifetime streaming membership. Blanca Padilla, a Victoria's Secret Angel who trained with Pasterino, raved about the Pvolve and the $60 P.Ball — an exercise ball strapped to a resistance band — in Vogue and Cosmopolitan.

But some of Pasterino's former ModelFit colleagues were struck by how similar Bodies by P and Pvolve were to Justin Gelband's methods. It's difficult to claim legal "ownership" of a workout regimen; a California judge recently dismissed Tracy Anderson's copyright lawsuit against a former employee who started her own fitness brand. But the ModelFit cofounders felt betrayed. In their eyes, the colleagues said, Pasterino had taken everything he learned from ModelFit, made a few minor tweaks, and repackaged it as his own. Packer and Gelband had considered Pasterino a friend; now, he was siphoning ModelFit clients.

When contacted by BI, Gelband said that Pvolve plagiarized his method. All he wants, Gelband said, is credit for inspiring the brand. "None of these people would ever exist if it wasn't for me," he told BI. Even the P.Ball, for instance, is markedly similar to the Pelvicore Pro ball that Gelband used with postpartum clients. ModelFit employees told BI that Gelband used the Pelvicore Pro only with the permission of its creator, the physical therapist Christina Christie. Christie taught at the Gray Institute, an organization dedicated to teaching functional-fitness methods where Gelman and Pasterino studied. She invented the Pelvicore Pro in 2006 to help women dealing with weak pelvic floor muscles — not to use in Pasterino's "Thigh Gap Thursday" classes.

"Money buys a lot in this world," Gelband said. If "you're advertised properly," everybody "jumps on the bandwagon."

Pasterino had married into a family whose patriarch, David Katzman, offered his children the sort of capital that the average startup founder can only dream of. When Jordan Katzman, then 25, cofounded the at-home teeth-straightening company SmileDirectClub in 2014, the first four years of SDC was largely funded by David Katzman's company, Camelot. David became the CEO in 2017.

Camelot made an initial investment of $10 million in Pvolve. Pasterino's father-in-law owned 20% of the business, according to the 2023 complaint, controlling two trusts that purchased 10% stakes. (Pasterino said he owned the remaining 80%.) Upon its launch, Pvolve brought on Julie Cartwright, a business-development veteran in Chicago who previously worked at Lionsgate, as its first president. Pasterino began earning a $70,000 salary, paid by Camelot, and Pvolve hired a team of trainers to teach his methods.

Rachel Katzman was still running Cuvée Beauty, but she became increasingly involved in the fitness brand, telling a podcast that she worked on "the business side of things" while Pasterino focused on the fitness. She was a memorable figure, with early employees recalling the bubbly twenty-something arriving in the office wearing Alo workout sets under big fur coats and throwing out ideas "left, right, and center." By the end of Pvolve's first year, former employees said, Katzman, Cartwright, and David Katzman were making most of the company's business decisions.

According to former employees, David Katzman was the boss above all bosses at Pvolve. And the SDC CEO was the kind of person who always got his way. Once, in October 2018, David Katzman met with Facebook's ad team to discuss SDC's before-and-after advertisements, which violated the tech company's policies. According to a Pvolve employee who was present at the meeting, the SDC CEO told the Facebook rep some version of: If you guys don't fucking change your policy for us, then we're going to take all of our budget away from you. Soon after, Facebook started letting SDC run before-and-after marketing. In the first half of 2019, SDC spent $209.1 million on marketing, much of it on Facebook ads.

David Katzman had strong opinions about Pvolve. He interviewed new hires and was heavily involved in marketing decisions. While David could be aggressive, Pvolve employees respected him and his opinion. In their minds, his success at SDC spoke for itself. Plus, it wasn't as if anyone could push back. He was the one providing the funding: Pasterino's complaint stated that in May 2018, David signed a $5 million promissory note to the company. The employee who left in 2019 said Pasterino's father-in-law "would kind of squash P. or suffocate P. anytime P. would try to speak" in meetings. Eventually, he said, Pasterino learned to "shut the fuck up if David is around."

Pasterino didn't seem to mind much. He was the "quiet artist of the bunch," the ex-employee said, with trainers describing him as chill and a bit shy — far sweeter than they expected from someone so good looking. Pasterino was primarily interested in developing workouts and training clients while his wife and his father-in-law handled the business strategy. SDC, and by extension the Katzman family, was flush with cash in 2018, announcing a $3.2 billion valuation after a $380 million round of funding. Two people who worked at Pvolve said the fitness brand had ample access to SDC resources. SDC employees worked on Pvolve marketing campaigns, and Pvolve employees took trips on David Katzman's jet. (A company controlled by David Katzman sold SDC a private jet for $3.4 million in 2019.)

As SDC thrived, Pvolve spent big. The company held extravagant events and launched partnerships with influencers like the heiress Hannah Bronfman. In 2018, Pasterino cohosted a workout class in a Covent Garden fitness studio in London with Nadine Leopold, a model and one of his clients. Pvolve sent an entire production crew to accompany Pasterino and put everyone up in a swanky hotel, the employee who left in 2019 said. He estimated the company spent tens of thousands of dollars on the pop-up. Fewer than 12 people attended the class.

On good days, working at Pvolve was exciting — a chance to build a company without having to worry about budget. A trainer said that filming streaming classes often felt like an actual party. But employees said the lavish spending could be accompanied by a bit of naivete. Without a board of directors, decisions sometimes felt arbitrary or based on Katzman's whims. Two former employees said Pvolve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on ad campaigns that they felt did little to bring in new members. Katzman herself recently said on a podcast that Pvolve didn't even have a "real business plan" for its first four years of existence.

One model said she felt Pvolve didn't always act professionally during this period. In January 2020, as Katzman rang the Nasdaq opening bell, a video of Laura Quintana played on a Times Square billboard. Images and video of the model had appeared on Pvolve's social media and in articles about the brand. But Pvolve had paid only to use her image online, Quintana said. Even more upsetting for Quintana was that the billboard appeared after Pvolve refused to hire her as an instructor, despite spending months training with the company without pay in 2019. Pvolve even flew her out from Los Angeles to New York to complete a "Master Trainer" session. Quintana accepted the rejection at the time, but in 2020 she hired a lawyer to dispute Pvolve's right to use her likeness in the billboard video . After months of back and forth, Quintana said, she got sick of trying to force Pvolve to pay up.

"I was taken advantage of in a major way," Quintana said.

When Cuvée Beauty quietly sold to the venture-capital firm Platform Ventures in 2019, Katzman had even more time to devote to Pvolve. Press releases started to refer to her as the "co-founder and CEO." (Pasterino was called a founder and "celebrity trainer.") She told podcast hosts that fitness had given her the "courage to start both these companies at a young age, with no experience." Katzman didn't mention in these interviews that both companies were funded by her father, an erasure that annoyed some employees. These employees described Katzman as nice but wildly out of touch, with an employee who left in 2022 recalling tales of Katzman's private chef preparing dishes for her cats, Nobu and Matsu.

"Rachel had this grandiose vision of what she thought the business would be," the employee who left in 2019 said. "Rachel was very ambitious, don't get me wrong," he added. But she was "spending as if there was no tomorrow."

In September 2019, SmileDirectClub went public . The debut was one of the worst of the year — so bad that BI reported at the time that David Katzman called JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon to ask whether the bank had mishandled the initial public offering. But it was still a financial boon for the Katzman family. The initial $8.9 billion valuation was enough to make both David and Jordan Katzman billionaires overnight, and the CEO personally cashed out $198 million.

Inside Pvolve, it seemed that the Katzmans' new billionaire status caused any remaining financial prudence to evaporate. According to the employee who left in 2019, the new mantra was: "We have so much money, we need to go bigger and bigger again — with no real regard to revenue." The "Real Housewives" star Bethenny Frankel posted photos of herself working out as a #PvolvePartner, while the "Riverdale" actor Madelaine Petsch hired Pasterino as her personal trainer. In October 2019, the former Miss Universe Olivia Culpo hosted the grand opening of Pvolve's new multimillion-dollar, 6,700-square-foot studio in SoHo. The bathrooms were covered in coral wallpaper embossed with golden peaches and filled with backlit mirrors optimized for selfies. Members were offered unlimited free Ritual beauty products, d+Co dry shampoo, and Lola tampons.

"They'd hired a lot, and they were growing rapidly, and it was really exciting," a former trainer said. "I remember it being quite overwhelming for us trainers, for Stephen. I think we were almost growing faster than we could handle in certain ways."

Pasterino's solution seemed to be to disappear. The employee who left in 2019 said the trainer spent more time with his family in New Jersey than at the SoHo headquarters. Pasterino stopped appearing in new online videos, prompting fans to flood the Pvolve Facebook group with complaints. Two former employees said Pasterino would sometimes simply not show up for classes he was scheduled to teach. (A person close to Pasterino said he had refused to work for a period of time in 2019 because David Katzman had stopped paying his salary and stopped paying for consulting work, a claim that Pasterino went on to make in his lawsuit. Pvolve's attorney Connolly said Pasterino was compensated for all work performed in 2019.)

Employees began to gossip about the state of Pasterino and Katzman's marriage. By late 2019, their divorce was "imminent," Pasterino's complaint said. Simultaneously, the complaint said, David Katzman began threatening to call on his $5 million promissory note. Pasterino said in the complaint that he was finally "pressured" into signing an agreement with his father-in-law in January 2020 that adjusted his stake in the company to just 20%.

"He didn't come from anything, and he spent years and years building up the business," the person close to Pasterino told BI. "He didn't want to lose all of that." But Pasterino didn't have the funds to fight his father-in-law.

"It felt like there was a gun to his head," the person said.

Pasterino and Katzman entered into a separation agreement in May 2020 and divorced three months later. As part of their divorce agreement, both waived any claim to the other's stake in Pvolve. In November 2020, a few days shy of Pvolve's third anniversary, Pasterino announced on Instagram that he planned to "step away from Pvolve for a while," traveling to Italy and Kenya. He later said in a podcast interview that his mindset heading to Kenya was: "Fuck this; I'm out."

Pasterino started working in conservation research, living off the grid in the Naboisho Conservancy. He wrote on Instagram that he spent most of his time tracking cheetahs, his favorite of the Kenyan animals. Early the next year, Pasterino moved to Maasai Mara and got a job in construction. In the spring of 2021, he went on a fateful mushroom journey in which the path to a return to training stretched out in front of him. Pasterino later said in a podcast interview that he booked a flight to New York the next day. In October 2021, he launched ThreeForm, his new functional-fitness brand, in a SoHo studio a 15-minute walk from Pvolve's flagship.

After Pasterino surrendered his majority stake, David Katzman transferred 75% of the company to his daughter, according to the 2023 complaint. The SDC CEO then launched "an aggressive growth campaign," the complaint said, loaning Pvolve more than $90 million. Pvolve was ahead of the trend in streaming workout classes, a strategic move that paid off during the pandemic. In June 2021, Pvolve announced that its paid subscribers had increased by 94% "post-COVID." New users in the US were up by 129% in the same period, according to the company. The next year, Pvolve announced plans to open 250 locations by 2025 , signing franchisees in Chicago, Nashville, and San Diego. Hannah, the early fan, was one of the first franchisees to sign on.

While employees missed Pasterino, a former employee said that without him, Pvolve grew up. The company hired an advisory board and began emphasizing workouts' scientific bona fides. Hannah told BI that when Pasterino left Pvolve, she had been concerned. After all, he was the reason she'd joined in the first place. But she went ahead with opening a Pvolve studio in Nashville because executives assured her the separation was cordial. She liked and trusted the remaining leadership: Katzman, who sent her a handwritten letter when she signed her franchise agreement, and Cartwright, who meets with her one-on-one every month.

"I've only heard positive things from corporate regarding" Pasterino, Hannah said. "And I think it's really cool the way he's rebranded himself."

Pvolve increasingly marketed itself as the story of a female founder creating a fitness brand for women. It even debuted a menstrual-cycle-inspired workout plan, with Christie Brinkley attending the prelaunch poolside dinner at Katzman's $6 million Southampton home. Katzman was featured in podcasts like "Superwomen with Rebecca Minkoff" and "Dear FoundHer with Lindsay Pinchuk." The company officially rebranded as Pvolve, saying in a press release that the name was derived from the phrase "Personal Evolution." Pvolve's lawyer Connolly wrote to BI that "at the time that Pvolve's founders were workshopping its name, the 'P' stood for 'precision,' 'physical therapy,' 'planes of motion,' 'personal,' 'precise,' or 'purposeful'" and that "while Pvolve did also have Pasterino in mind while considering names for the company, it never stood for 'Pasterino Evolved '" (emphasis his).

While being cut out from Pvolve's marketing narrative frustrated Pasterino, the person close to him said he was typically able to compartmentalize his feelings and focus on ThreeForm. But others were angry on his behalf. Members of the Pvolve Facebook Group complained that the new "Personal Evolution" narrative simply wasn't accurate, with one commenting that the company's actions were "not transparent at all." Pasterino's mother, Pamela, couldn't stop herself from adding a reply of her own.

"The P stands for Pasterino!" she commented.

Pasterino went on to use the P.Ball and other Pvolve equipment in ThreeForm classes, and Pvolve's lawyers began sending him cease-and-desist letters. In July 2022, Pvolve's general counsel sent Pasterino a screenshot of an Instagram story in which Pasterino said a ThreeForm class would involve a "P-Band." The attorney wrote: "If you do not cease such actions, Pvolve reserves the right to take all necessary legal action to enforce its trademark rights, including but not limited to legal action." Connolly told BI that "companies like Pvolve have an obligation to protect their intellectual property for the benefit of all stakeholders."

To Pasterino and those close to him, the August 2022 Bosu Ball incident felt like Pvolve taking its attacks to the next level. According to legal filings from Katzman's lawyers, Pvolve employees played a game of telephone upon Pasterino's unexpected arrival to the SoHo studio: The receptionist, Kathryn Delacruz, called her manager, Madison Krause, and Krause called Katzman. Krause said that on Katzman's orders she got on the phone with Pasterino and told him that if he took the equipment, she would call the police. According to affidavits from Krause and Delacruz, they had no idea that Pasterino was storing equipment in the studio. Pasterino left with the Bosu Balls and Core Boards, and Krause called 911.

"Old employee who is not allowed in the space came and stole multiple items and walked around," Krause said in a police report. "We warned him twice to leave and leave the items behind and he refused."

Pasterino turned himself in after being contacted by the authorities. In the following weeks, Pvolve's general counsel requested an order of protection against Pasterino, saying he had frequently visited locations and harassed employees. (The court denied the request.) Pasterino said in filings that he was still a partial owner of Pvolve and even had keys to the flagship studio. He provided receipts showing that he'd purchased the equipment in 2016. Pvolve's attorney's wrote in a legal filing that the receipts were "unclear," but the court dismissed the charges on November 30, 2022.

Pasterino's lawyers said the trainer "faced significant and lasting damages stemming from the false accusation." In April 2023, Pasterino sued Pvolve and his ex-wife on charges including false arrest, malicious prosecution, and defamation.

"Mr. Pasterino continues to live in fear that if the Katzmans were willing to falsely report him for a crime, they might also seek to harm him in other ways," the complaint says.

While Pvolve made headlines post-Pasterino, Katzman was privately struggling. In a recent podcast, she recalled crying to a Pvolve colleague about her fear that the company wouldn't survive the divorce. She was found to have Lyme disease in 2020 after being bitten by a tick in the Hamptons while chasing her cat. Katzman was constantly nauseated and exhausted and spent months receiving antibiotics and IV treatments. As SmileDirectClub's stock plummeted, Katzman's father became less involved in Pvolve, according to a former employee. And while Pvolve's popularity exploded during the pandemic, the ex-employee said morale took a hit when a round of layoffs came in early 2022.

Through it all, Katzman and her team continued to pour money into Pvolve marketing campaigns. While some argue that Pvolve ripped off ModelFit's methods, and others say Katzman swiped her ex-husband's company, Katzman seems to have understood from the start that success goes far beyond the exercises. ModelFit's SoHo studio went from being the hottest class in New York City to shuttering in late 2019. While Christie's Pelvicore Pro ball found niche support in the functional fitness community, its YouTube videos have a couple of thousand views each, tops. Katzman had grander aspirations for Pvolve.

Katzman struck gold in the form of Jennifer Aniston. The "Friends" star started streaming Pvolve classes during the pandemic and was quickly hooked. When Aniston's team emailed Katzman in 2022, Katzman originally thought it was a prank.

"I was like, who the fuck is punking me," Katzman told The Skinny Confidential in April. "This is so cruel. Like, who would do this, this isn't real."

Aniston began working out with Pvolve's head trainer. Soon after, Katzman flew to Los Angeles to discuss how Aniston could become more involved. In June 2023, Pvolve announced that Aniston had joined as an advisor. While Pvolve did not publicly announce that Aniston had acquired a stake in the company, Pvolve's chief technology officer posted on LinkedIn that the actress was Pvolve's new co-owner. ("Jennifer is kind of a big deal," he wrote.) Aniston became the face of Pvolve overnight, posing for photo shoots with Katzman and raving about the brand to Women's Health, People, and Forbes. According to Connolly, franchise inquiries rocketed by 125% and social-media followers increased 40% following the announcement of Aniston's involvement.

"SO proud to support our female founder and the beyond talented trainers," Aniston wrote on Instagram.

With Aniston's celebration of Pvolve's "female founder," the Pasterino era felt officially over. Katzman's and Pasterino's lawyers volleyed legal filings back and forth throughout the summer and fall of 2023. According to the person close to Pasterino, the anxiety post-arrest made him physically ill, at a time when Pasterino was already stretched thin. Starting ThreeForm had been expensive, and the new business was nowhere close to as successful as Pvolve. Pasterino was charging up to $200 for monthly memberships, and many would-be members were scared away by the price tag.

In November, Katzman and Pasterino reached a settlement, and the lawsuit was dismissed. It was a muted ending for the monthslong legal drama. According to the person close to Pasterino, he didn't want a big financial payout or to regain control of Pvolve. He just wanted to be able to call himself the founder of Pvolve without feeling threatened by the Katzmans.

"Just because they have so much money doesn't mean they always get to win," the person close to Pasterino said.

The Katzmans were dealt another blow as SDC imploded in late 2023. The teeth-alignment company's sales had been plummeting since 2021 and its reputation was shot as dentists and customers filed lawsuits claiming SDC had failed to provide proper medical care. The company declared bankruptcy in September, reporting nearly $900 million in debt. In December, the business announced it was shutting down, effective immediately .

Former SDC employees told BI that they blamed David Katzman. The CEO had plunged them into unemployment without warning or severance, after assuring them that SDC would secure funding. Pvolve's attorney Connelly told BI that David Katzman, along with SDC's cofounders, had loaned the company $25 million but were "unable to secure third party financing due to the macroeconomic environment." Workers filed a class-action lawsuit, saying that SDC broke federal labor laws by failing to provide notice before the layoffs. (The class-action suit remains ongoing.) But as employees panicked over their financial futures, the CEO seemed more focused on his own grief. He wrote in a December email to a group of executives: "I woke up this morning and can't stop crying."

"I am turning to a professional for some counseling. Looking forward to it and long overdue," David Katzman wrote, adding a smiley-face emoji. "If anyone has a recommendation for a rock star, I will gladly take their info."

In 2024 — nine years after they met, seven years after founding Pvolve, and four years post-divorce — Pasterino and Katzman seem to have struck a truce.

ThreeForm hasn't launched any national marketing campaigns. It doesn't partner with influencers. It shuttered its single location earlier this year to focus on its online business. The only way to join its streaming program — called simply the Program — is to DM the brand on Instagram.

Yet Pasterino recently called the Program his "greatest work of art yet." At least some former Pvolve members agree. Sarah VanZalen, a 30-year-old from Ann Arbor, Michigan, said she switched from Pvolve to ThreeForm last year. She told BI it had been worth it for the "one-on-one attention that you wouldn't really get anywhere else." ThreeForm will never be as big as Pvolve, but it seems to be closer to the business that Pasterino actually wanted to build.

"Business people love — well, their job is to focus on the money," Pasterino said in a 2022 podcast. "This industry is not so much about money. It's more about the people and the community."

Pvolve's community, meanwhile, has continued to grow. Since Aniston's involvement was announced, there's been a steady beat of positive press, and the company is aggressively expanding. Connolly told BI that its revenue had increased 165% in the past year, and that its subscriber base doubled in 2023. Last week, Pvolve announced a partnership with the luxury Los Angeles grocer Erewhon. "I want it to be world known," Aniston told WWD in May.

Industry experts say such dramatic growth isn't always good for franchisees. Tim Michaels, a consultant, told BI that he tried to steer clients away from fitness chains because of their "faddish" nature. In these cases, he said, it's in franchisors' best interest to sell as many locations as quickly as possible before it's clear whether the concept has long-term potential.

"There's a huge issue with FOMO, where people see a celebrity tied to a brand and they just don't do their due diligence," Michaels said. "Suddenly, they've lost their net worth because they thought this was going to be some great trend they were getting in on."

But it's possible Katzman can turn Pvolve into a brand with staying power. Nine months after opening her Pvolve location in Nashville, Hannah said her experience couldn't be better. Women from their 20s to their 70s are joining the studio. She is in constant communication with the corporate office. More members would always be nice, she said, but the business is on a good trajectory. Her favorite Pvolve workouts are still Pasterino's classics, and she thinks ThreeForm is "amazing." But, she said, she understands why Pvolve needed to evolve if it wanted to become an international chain.

"It's not like she's doing this just because she's all about the money," Hannah said of Katzman. "She lives and breathes Pvolve."

On Instagram, Katzman posts pictures of Aperol spritzes in Malibu alongside photos of herself embracing Aniston, their obliques on display above black leggings. In recent months she's gone blond, her hair matching Aniston's highlights.

Five years ago, The Skinny Confidential host had gushed about Katzman and Pasterino, calling them "the cutest couple." When she appeared again on the show this April, Katzman reframed the early days of her and Pasterino's marriage: the rush of romance, how new and exciting everything felt.

"At the end of the day, we are just two fundamentally different people," she said on the podcast. "We want two different things out of life, both personally, professionally, the way we work, the way we want to live."

"I think we are very much happier now," she added, "than we were then."