Peloton’s Cody Rigsby talks new book, childhood poverty, and sudden fame: ‘a wild ride’ (original) (raw)

Peloton’s Cody Rigsby talks new book, childhood poverty, and sudden fame: ‘a wild ride’

You don’t have to be a Peloton member to be a fan of one of their most popular instructors, Cody Rigsby—who perhaps you’ve also seen on Dancing With the Stars, Instagram (1.3M followers), or TikTok (3.7M likes). To celebrate his new memoir, XOXO, Cody, one of our most anticipated books of fall and best nonfiction books of the month, Rigsby chatted with the Amazon Book Review’s Lindsay Powers:

Lindsay Powers, Amazon Book Review: Tell us about XOXO, Cody, your new book.

Cody Rigsby: It is about life and relationship advice through my lived experience, and it is mostly focused on self-love, loving yourself through trauma, loving yourself enough to date yourself first, loving yourself enough to create boundaries, ask for more money—all that sort of stuff. And most importantly: not taking life or yourself too seriously.

I got to know you while working out at home during COVID as many people did, and on Dancing With the Stars. But you didn't just burst onto the scene of Peloton, with millions of followers on Instagram. Your book details your hard start in New York: three jobs, relying on food stamps, and even dressing up as a goose in a Sully Sullenberger dance routine.

New York is a hard city for anybody. I moved here right after the recession, so the economy was kind of weird. I was also trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I’d just graduated and was doing fashion marketing for a streetwear company. And then that bellied up, and I had this decision to make. I went more into my dance route.

Anybody that works in the arts knows it's a life of passion and not money. There were definitely times where I wasn't making enough money, so I had to apply for food stamps. There were times that I didn't have a place to live, so I had to sleep on friends' couches or they'd let me stay in their apartments for a week if they were gone.

I'm thankful for those experiences because they created a strong work ethic and made me into the person I am today. I think anybody in their young adult life, and especially New Yorkers, have to go through the ups and downs and the trials and tribulations to find who we are.

Tell us about your Peloton journey.

What set me on a journey of self-discovery and self-love was being at Peloton. I was at the right place at the right time. I was working at The Box [a night club and performance space] on the Lower East Side. A person there knew a person at Peloton, and said, “Hey, Cody would be good for this job.” I'd never taught a cycling class, I'd never taught a fitness class, but I had a cute face and wild ambitions and I was like, “I'm going to make it.” And here we are nine years later. I can't believe this wild journey.

People thought Peloton came on the scene at the onset of COVID, but I'd already been at Peloton for six, seven years. I’d put in a lot of work to prepare myself for that opportunity. That moment when Peloton blew up, I was ready.

You also had a rough childhood. You’re open up in your book about your father passing away when you were an infant, and your mother’s struggles with substance use disorder and mental health. You offer so much compassion to them, and to yourself. How did your start in life make you into the person you are today?

I look back at that hardship in life, and a lot of the things that I dealt with that no kid should have to deal with—homelessness, eviction, both of my parents dealing with addiction. But I have an immense amount of gratitude for all that happened, because those things put me on the path to where I am. And going through that allows me to look back and smile and remember the good things, but also laugh and tell myself, “I made it. I made it through.”

And there's no better medicine than laughing—and also offering compassion. I grew up with a better glimpse of what it means to be an adult. And being an adult is hard. We have a lot of choices to make, and I know that I'm not perfect. And I look at someone like my mom, and know that she's not a perfect person—and on top of that, she was dealing with mental health issues and addiction. And unfortunately, addiction is a disease that people can't control. And so as a teenager or as a young person, you have a lot of resentment.

You want your parents to do the right thing and provide for you the way that you want to be provided for, but sometimes they're not able to do that. When we look back from a lens of compassion, we understand that the people in our lives who care about us are literally doing the best they can, and we can have a little bit of grace toward them and a little bit of forgiveness. Creating that and giving that grace allows for more connection and love between the people in our lives, including our parents.

I've started this interview off on these darker, heavier topics. But your book is not dark and heavy. It’s also a delight to read.

If we can't look back at the dark things in life and process them and laugh at them, we're not going to be able to settle into the joy and the laughter. And even when I think about some of my messed up childhood, I still am connected to those fun things: like nostalgic food and nostalgic moments with my mom that brought so much joy. We talk about addiction; that's just one aspect of a person, and there's so many more dimensions of a person that we have to celebrate and remind why we love them. We are all messy humans who have tons of layers.

Speaking of multi-layered people, you talk about Dancing With the Stars drama in your book, including with partner Cheryl Burke.

Oh goodness. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done. It's one of the most rewarding things I've ever done. That being said, if you put $2 million in front of me, I would never do it again. I'm so glad that I did it, but I don't want to experience that ever again. Not that it wasn't cool and amazing, but it was just so challenging. And honestly, as much as I am an extrovert and someone who is on camera all the time, I still get anxiety and I felt a lot of that during the show. But once again, it taught me a lot about overcoming that anxiety and reminding myself of who I am.

I talk about mine and Cheryl's relationship in the book, and most of the time it was smooth, but there were those times that we would butt heads or not agree on certain things, and I felt like I had to hold my boundaries with her. Through that, we developed a lot of love and compassion for each other. Once I learned she was going through a separation with her partner—and that is a really heavy and hard thing to deal with—I saw some of the arguments we had through a different lens. And as I reflected on my own journey with Dancing With the Stars, and how much anxiety it brought up and how hard that was for me mentally and emotionally … I did it for one season. She's done it for 20-plus. That just compounded on how I viewed her with more compassion and also respected her more after I got done with that process.

Do you have endless grace for people?

I think so. It’s so much easier for us to give love, grace, forgiveness, kindness to other people than it is sometimes to give it to ourselves. When we dish it out to others, that is a practice of learning how to give grace and compassion to ourselves. I had to learn that through my life process, and I still haven't perfected it, I still haven't figured it all out. But I am reminded that if you give it to others, you will receive it. And most importantly, you'll receive it from yourself.

You said you got anxious when the cameras turned on for Dancing With the Stars. Do you when the cameras turn on for your Peloton rides?

I was just talking about this with colleagues in the green room. I've done Peloton so many times that it’s very rare that I get anxious. Maybe if we're doing an artist series or we have a special guest and there's high stakes, I get a little bit anxious.

Even when Mariah Carey was on one of your XOXO, Cody rides?

I was definitely nervous, and made sure I said the right line so she said her line. You don't want to upset a diva and we love Mariah because she is a diva.

But whenever you jump into something new and there's high stakes and you're invested in it the anxiety is going to come up. That is normal and natural and that still happens to me. Doing interviews like this or press that I've got going on or anything that's new, I think it's good to be anxious because you care. Fortunately, I have invested in tools that help me get through that anxiety. Either it's meditation, it's working out, it's therapy, it's journaling, it's breathing, and really reminding yourself of what you're capable of.

You’re refreshingly honest. In your book, you write that money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy peace. But you also say that growing up without a lot of money, you feel like your success could disappear at any moment. Do you still feel this way?

I think it's getting better. Yes, I grew up super poor, I faced eviction, homelessness. The automatic fear is that it is going to be taken away from you. With anything—success, money—when you start to have those things, you can easily tap into a place of fear and trying to control everything. With time, more experience, and more understanding, I come back to trusting myself and knowing that I've made it through 36 years of life. There's been a lot of ups and downs, but either way, if I did lose it, I'm going to be fine.

Fans know you for your hot takes on everything from grape jelly to Mr. Big, but between all the fun, you write in your book that you found a deeper meeting at Peloton by opening people up to fitness—and the LGBTQ community, of which you're a member. How does it feel to help more people find acceptance and community?

As much as I am unserious about certain things, I am serious about this—but always approach it from that silliness, or just showing up as who I am. I have the ability to be in front of millions of people on this bike, on TV, because somebody before me did a lot of work to make sure that queer people, trans people, have rights. Obviously, we're still fighting for more, especially in this climate, but I always give gratitude to the people who came before me and did the work and I'm going to pay my respect to those people by simply living out authentically, loudly, and not hiding who I am.

A lot of that is playing queer artists, celebrating Pride, being myself, and talking about my friendships and my relationships in my classes. I do that because I think of these mediums, whether it be Peloton, TikTok, Instagram, or the book, and think about the person who is consuming that content who might not be from a very progressive place like New York. And because they have fallen in love with my workouts or who I am on those platforms, that that hopefully changes the mind of that person. Maybe it creates a better relationship with LGBTQ+ people in their lives, and therefore also has this domino effect within their own communities.

We see acceptance and progress as this big thing, but I think that we also forget that it starts in actions and in small places, and can really grow and blossom from there. Hopefully somebody who's taking my class either opens themselves up to getting out of the same thought patterns, or someone at home sees themselves represented on that screen and thinks to themselves, oh, I can have success or happiness or joy.

By helping people find acceptance, we feel like we can be messy and imperfect. You motivate so many of us; what motivates you?

Listen, there are days that I am not motivated, that I don't want to do things. Maybe it's my workout, maybe it's working. And I write about that in the book. It's okay to not be motivated some days. Give yourself that grace. Give yourself time to be in bed, order food, watch whatever, be with your boo, be with your dog. Because it creates balance. But the thing that motivates me, and I am really privileged to have this, is that I have the ability, especially in the work that I do, to affect people; to change hearts, change minds, to inspire people, and so it really keeps me rooted in purpose. That purpose is to inspire people to be the best version of themselves, to love themselves, and to open themselves up to their messiness and their journey.

Speaking of staying motivated, it's not easy to write a book. What was the hardest part of the process?

The hardest thing for me was: a lot of these stories in this book I had in one way shared, but in little nuggets, in very controlled ways. And the hardest thing was, how deep do I want to go? How vulnerable do I want to go? I try to be an open book and to be as vulnerable as I possibly can, so that when people read these stories or they hear these stories, they can relate and maybe feel less alone, and/or they are inspired to create change in their own life.

Amazon Book Review editors Lindsay Powers (left) and Al Woodworth (right) pose with Cody Rigsby (center) after interviewing him at Peloton’s NYC studio and taking one of his classes.

Author photo credit: Bronson Farr