Behind the Prancercise®

There’s a special place in my heart for Joanna Rohrback, AKA the Prancercise® Lady, which is why I enjoyed the New Times’s profile of Rohrback. Some things:

• She says that people should use the ® symbol whenever writing about Prancercise® due to legal reasons.

• She used Craigslist to find a designer for the cover of her book — 26-year-old Eric Gzimalowski (“She wanted clouds and fields and horses. And at the center of the idyll, she directed Gzimalowski to superimpose photographs of her squeezed inside spandex and anklets, mid-Prancercise®.”) Gzimalowski was paid $150 for his design (Rohrback knew better than to ask a designer on Craigslist to do free work.)

• She went through some really dark times, and when she was asked how she survived, she said: “It was credit cards and savings.” A long-time friend says that Rohrback’s father, who was an attorney in New York, died young and left her enough money to live on, though Rohrback denies that.

• She says John Mayer tricked her when Prancercise® was used in his music video, “Paper Doll.” But she says she was paid a “substantial amount.”

Illustration: Tim Gabor for New Times

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