At last count, social media star Paige Hathaway has 4.3 million Facebook likes, 3.2 million Instagram followers and 172,000 Twitter followers.
At 28-years-old, she is one of the top fitness celebrities on social media and thousands of new people click the "follow" button on her accounts every day.
Hathaway's photos range from shots in the gym from shots in her kitchen, from professional pictures to filtered selfies showing off her stunning, strong physique.
While some of the photos are NSFW-ish, her lifestyle is designed to inspire and motivate her loyal fans — and the comments underneath many of her pictures assure her that she's doing a good job.
"Thank you Paige!!!! For being my inspiration," one commenter wrote underneath a recent Instagram upload.
But just a few years ago, Hathaway could never have imagined anyone would be thanking her for inspiring them on the internet.
A rough childhood
When she was young, Hathaway's parents divorced, and she was forced to split her time between her parents. Her father was an alcoholic.
"We lived in a trailer. We lived on food stamps. Any type of government aid that you could get, my mom had," Hathaway told Tech Insider.
As a custody battle between her parents raged on, Hathaway's mother was told she couldn't leave Minnesota. But that didn't stop Hathaway's mom from fleeing to Texas to be with a guy she met online. She took 4-year-old Paige with her. When the police finally tracked Hathaway and her mom down in Texas, she was taken from her mother's care and moved back to Minnesota under the custody of her paternal grandmother.
Her home life remained unstable throughout her childhood. She moved between a foster home and two other families in the span of 12 years.
But once she turned 16, Hathaway wanted to take control of her life. A judge granted her the right to emancipate herself.
Getting the fitness bug
Though Hathaway was an athletic high school student and played a handful of sports, she never considered fitness something that would get her through life after graduation. In fact, Hathaway planned on being a dentist, and between 2006 and 2010, the college student worked various part-time jobs to put herself through Oklahoma University. And when she wasn't working or studying, she'd head to a gym on campus to work out.
Eventually, a trainer who had noticed Hathaway approached her and asked if she'd ever considered participating in what he called "fitness shows."
Her response? She'd never heard of them.
The trainer gave a simple explanation. Fitness shows were competitive performances where one person would be declared a winner. They were not unlike beauty pageants, but instead of talents like singing and dancing, fitness shows revolved around three cornerstones: diet, exercise, and performing physical routines on stage.
"I was like dieting? No way! I was in college! I was in a sorority, I was going to parties," Hathaway recalls. "I didn't want to give that up."
At that first meeting, she dismissed the trainer, but continued to run into him every so often at the gym. And every time she did, he'd ask her if she was ready for a show. And every time he asked, Hathaway politely declined.
But ... at some point, she told us, her "sorority phase" went away and she finally gave in to the idea. The trainer was ecstatic. She trained — a rigid, difficult, time-consuming training schedule — for four months, ultimately taking second place in her division of the 2012 Ronnie Coleman Classic.
Riding high off of her first competition and relishing the chance to compete again, Hathaway entered into two additional shows, but practically finished in last place for both. Though she was extremely discouraged, she couldn't deny she had caught the bug.
"I knew I wanted to spread health and wellness to individuals," she explained to TI.
She didn't know how she was going to do that, only that she knew she could cast a wider net than just participating in fitness competitions — somewhat of a niche world. She thought about writing or modeling for different fitness magazines, but she didn't have any connections, not to mention an agent or money to pay on.
So she cold-emailed every publication she had ever heard of, and a few she hadn't.
"No one wrote me back. It was like months later and I finally got a reply —someone from Women's Health in New York," she remembers, "And they said, 'We would love to meet you. Can you come in this Thursday or next Thursday?'"
Hathaway hadn't considered having to come up with the funds to travel to one of these magazine's headquarters. "I was broke, working two jobs and trying to pay rent and for school," Hathaway explained. But luckily, an aunt stepped in and gave Hathaway the money to travel to New York City.
"She knew it was my dream," Hathaway remembered.
Despite strong interest from Women's Health, they could not sign Hathaway as a fitness model for their publication since she did not have official representation from an agency. Feeling downtrodden, Hathaway returned to Oklahoma, thinking she had hit rock bottom.
Trying to rally, she entered the 2012 Olympia Expo, a fitness expo in Las Vegas where fitness personalities and companies convene and network. Thinking it might be a good opportunity to meet someone who could represent her, Hathaway brought a stack of comp cards, a small portfolio of photos often used by models and actors, and passed them out until they were gone.
She had one bite: Shredz, a small bodybuilding company at the time, was eager to sign her on. Shredz is a nutritional supplement and fitness information company that has built its loyal following via social media and association with fitness celebs like Hathaway. According to Forbes, in its first year in 2012 it grossed $90,000. A year later and with Hathaway on their roster of talent, they exploded to $5 million gross revenue, evidence of the power of social media.
Hathaway has been the face of Shredz for three years.
From fitness shows to social media stardom
Though Hathaway was thrilled working with Shredz, she admits that her career really took off when she created an Instagram account.
As she continued to post photos of her workouts and her selfies, she saw millions of followers pour in. Actually, she says it happened so fast Hathaway finds it hard to pinpoint the one singular moment where she felt social media stardom had fallen on her shoulders.
With a massive fan base, she's in the midst of building a fitness empire all on her own. She has a subscription site, creates personalized training programs for clients, carefully selects her endorsements and keeps her followers happy with daily photos and videos. Recently she signed a 1-year deal with two additional one year options with Healthost for an equity stake worth around seven figures. There she'll write, create videos and make various appearances for the site that connects individuals dealing with similar medical conditions or issues.
Hathaway says she's happy.
"I used to be so ashamed. I hated where I came from. But now, looking back ... I see it's made me who I am today. It made me want a lot more for myself."
