// WIRED US/UK — LINUX & OPEN SOURCE
White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia Was an Affiliate Marketer for a Fitness MLM
Since her first appearance behind the podium this week, White House press secretary Katie Zacharia’s past has become murkier by the day.
A WIRED review of deleted social media and professional networking profiles has helped clear up at least one mystery. Zacharia’s online resume shows a gap extending from 2013 to late 2023. For part of that time, she worked as an affiliate of Beachbody, a fitness company that ran a multilevel marketing operation she describes to WIRED as “sort of a pyramid scheme.”
Zacharia’s background prior to her emergence as a right-wing operative and pundit in recent years has been the subject of intense curiosity. Prior to joining the White House’s press team, she was a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, a communications advisor at President Donald Trump’s media company, and a commentator on Newsmax and Fox News.
Other parts of her professional background have come under scrutiny, particularly her legal work. According to her LinkedIn, Zacharia was an associate at the Zhong Lun law firm, known in China as a top tier “red circle” firm, between 2011 and 2013. She also identifies herself on LinkedIn as having worked as general counsel for the nonprofit Fix California. Tax filings reviewed by WIRED, though, show that rather than working as general counsel for Fix California, Zacharia was in fact a fundraiser for the nonprofit.
On Tuesday, journalist Judd Legum reported that Zacharia—who, he noted, was identified as an attorney in at least 18 appearances on Fox News—did not appear to have ever passed the bar. Since then, The Wall Street Journal has reported that she sat for the California bar exam but never passed—a finding WIRED independently confirmed. (On Wednesday, watchdog organization Campaign for Accountability filed a complaint with the State Bar of California seeking to investigate the veracity of Zacharia’s claims to be an attorney.)
WIRED was able to gain some clarity about other aspects of Zacharia’s professional history using a database of material leaked online created by the open-source intelligence firm District 4 Labs. It contains details from a since-deleted LinkedIn account belonging to Zacharia, which listed Beachbody email addresses as two of her points of contact. A representative for the company told WIRED there was no record of her having worked there. In a phone call, Zacharia confirmed to WIRED that she had never been employed by the company.
Zacharia says she was, rather, an affiliate marketer for Beachbody, following her 2013 return from China. She recalls being brought in by a friend and promoting its Shakeology product, which is promoted as a “superfood nutrition shake.” She stopped using and promoting the product, she says, because of its vitamin A content, which she didn’t feel was good for her while pregnant.
Beachbody, now known as BODi, confirmed in a statement that Zacharia was among its 300,000 “independent Team Beachbody distributors” in 2013. A spokesperson added that they believed it would be “misrepresentation” to conflate Zacharia’s time at Beachbody with “BODi’s current business and operations.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly for a company that relied on a multilevel marketing scheme for decades, the company has run into a number of legal issues over the years. It's been accused of falsely advertising a revolutionary anti-aging treatment (the suit was voluntarily dismissed), and making false or misleading income promises to contractors. It got into a copyright battle with a company called orderlegalsteroids.com, accusing it of stealing an image of Israeli bodybuilder Sagi Kalev from promotional materials for their “BODY BEAST” Program. (Beachbody won a default judgment.)
In 2017, Beachbody, without admitting any wrongdoing, settled a $3.6 million consumer protection lawsuit with the city attorney in Santa Monica, California. Prosecutors alleged that Beachbody made health-related claims about its products, including Shakeology, that were “false, mi