EXCLUSIVE How 'naive' SoulCycle co-founder missed out on $90 million payday from sale of fitness chain

Daily Mail​

26-05-2025

A new podcast exposing the secrets behind SoulCycle has revealed how the fitness chain's 'naive' co-founder Ruth Zukerman missed out on a $90 million payday from the sale of the company.
The seven-part audio series, titled the Cult of Body & Soul, tracks the incredible rise and fall of the indoor cycling class that sparked a fitness craze in the the 2010s.
In the first episode, SoulCycle's 2006 founding by celebrity talent agent Julie Rice and wealthy entrepreneur Elizabeth Cutler, along with their spin instructor at the time, Zukerman, is explored for the first time ever.
Zukerman introduced Cutler and Rice over lunch, and together the three women decided to start the brand that would eventually become SoulCycle.
However, Zukerman mysteriously left the company in 2009 to found her own rival cycling chain, FlyWheel, while Cutler and Rice went on to sell a stake of the business to Equinox for $90million each.
While the trio have never publicly discussed the details around their split, Janet Fitzgerald, who is currently the Master Instructor and Senior Training Officer for SoulCycle, claimed that Zukerman never had a contract in place.
'She did not have her contract written,' Fitzgerald said on The Cult of Body & Soul.
'It's very sad and also very shocking. Maybe she thought it was so small at the time that it wasn't necessary,' she continued.
'May this be a lesson for all of us. Get that s**t in writing and don't assume that other people are gonna do right by you.'
The Cult of Body & Soul host Jess Rothschild said, 'While Julie and Elizabeth were experienced businesswomen, Ruth was naive and did not have any proper legal protection in place.'
Additionally, an insider close to the situation told DailyMail.com, 'After the first year of SoulCycle being open, Ruth went into a meeting all excited to finally sign her contract... she walked into the room without legal representation and walked out no longer an owner.'
In a rare 2018 interview about her split from SoulCycle, a cryptic Zukerman told the Jewish Journal, 'Whenever you're going into a business partnership with anybody, make sure you're legally protected.'
She added, 'I did not do that and it cost me a lot.'
Rice and Cutler have also kept quiet about the split, telling the New York Times in 2020, 'Ruth worked with us for a time. We decided to part ways. We wish her the best.'
DailyMail.com has contacted Rice, Cutler and Zukerman for comment.
At its peak, SoulCycle was adored by the wealthy and elite and boasted a celebrity clientele that included Lady Gaga, Lena Dunham, Nicole Kidman, Chelsea Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, Vanessa Hudgens, Alec and Hilaria Baldwin, and more.
Throughout The Cult of Body & Soul, listeners will hear from notable long-term instructors, anonymous studio managers, front desk staff, corporate employees, and devoted clients who made SoulCycle the fastest-growing fitness studio in the country.
As one instructor described it, 'SoulCycle was the Soho House of fitness. It's where exclusivity met self-help guru. There was nothing like it.'
Another said, 'A lot of the instructors partied hard - I mean, partied hard.'
'So the young ones would stay out all night doing God knows what - a lot of drugs - and then coming in, popping an Adderall and then, like, getting on the bike spinning a million miles an hour.'
Others discuss the celebrity status that some of SoulCycle's more famous instructors were able to achieve.
'I am so adored by this community, I can say whatever the f**k I want, I can do whatever the f**k I want,' boasted one.
'We were all hot and wild, and some of us homewreckers,' she added.
The first episode of the Cult of Body & Soul drops on Tuesday, May 27.