The Untold Truth About Peloton Instructor Ally Love
If you're a Peloton fan, you're likely familiar with Ally Love. Since becoming an instructor for the cycling app in 2016, Love's infectious energy and spirituality-infused workouts have garnered her a dedicated audience of riders and fans around the world. However, the 34-year-old's achievements go far beyond her popular spin classes. Love began her career as a dancer, having received her high school education at the New World School of the Arts in Miami and then a bachelor's in fine arts for dance (and a minor in theology) at Fordham University in New York (via AllyLove.com).
After graduating, she pursued dance and fitness before going on to other endeavors: Brooklyn Nets host, model, and founder of her own female empowerment collective — Love Squad. Love's hard work and positive attitude is a central part of the brand she's built for herself, and has helped enable her to explore so many different ventures. "I'm a person who doesn't want to have a vertical career," she told Forbes in a February 2020 interview. "I love having a versatile career. All the things I do intersect with one another, by being an example and also touching and impacting people in real time."
Read on to get the scoop on Peloton instructor Ally Love's fascinating life.
A car accident was the impetus for her fitness career
Ally Love may never have emerged as a cycling superstar had it not been for a near-fatal car accident in her childhood. In October of 2020, Love penned an essay for Women's Health, detailing her experience of being hit by a car and breaking her femur at just 9 years old. After having a major surgery on her leg, doctors told her she would never be an athlete and that it was likely she would develop arthritis by the time she was a teenager. "I was able to defy those odds and decided that I really wanted to move my body," Love wrote.
After she recovered, Love began taking dance classes and eventually decided she wanted to pursue it as a career. Her parents supported her under the condition that she get a degree, which prompted Love to study at Fordham University. "I went on to dance with the grand ballets in Canada and San Francisco, perform as a Knicks dancer for three seasons, and eventually become a Peloton instructor," Love said in her essay.
Her physical challenges as a child inspired Love to make fitness and movement her life and in turn, help inspire others. "That ability to reclaim my agency, to come back to doing those activities that the doctor said that I would never do again happened when I was 10 years old," she said. "I feel like I started living at 10, and I never stopped."
Her faith is an important part of her life
If you're familiar with Ally Love's cycling classes, you've probably gathered that faith is a part of her life. But she doesn't just subscribe to a spirituality on a surface level; Love is a practicing Christian and active member of a local congregation. In her 2019 "Sunday Routine" with The New York Times, Love revealed that each week, she attends the 9:30 service at Redeemer Downtown in New York City. "I love hearing the sermon," Love said. "It grounds me, reminds me how great God has been to me, my family and friends, and I leave more knowledgeable."
She continued: "I found Redeemer and fell in love with the Bible-based teaching. That's a priority to me. We can all preach on feelings, but teaching on truth is what I live for, and learn from." Love also brings her faith into her classes at Peloton, particularly during her Sundays with Love series. According to Peloton, these classes are "specifically designed to help Members tap more deeply into their spiritual side."
She has been with her fiancé for nearly a decade
Though Ally Love has chosen to keep her personal life mostly private, she's occasionally opened up about her nearly nine-year relationship with her fiancé, Andrew Haynes. The Peloton instructor first shared their relationship on social media in 2018, with a photo of the couple in Paris. "Meet Andrew," she wrote in the caption. "We've be rollin' for a while, and I have to say it only gets better!"
In this same post, Love also shared a bit about their fondest memories together. "We share countries, cities, create memories and it has to be some of my favorite times of us," she wrote. "Although Friday nights on the couch with Indian food comes in at the top too."
Earlier this year, Love announced that the pair got engaged while on a trip to Mexico over the holidays. In an exclusive interview with People, she shared the details of the special moment. "We were having a conversation, and it kind of happened," Love said. "He got down on one knee, and he opened the ring box. It was beautiful. Put the ring on, and we had private fireworks. He had set up the whole thing unbeknownst to me, and it was quite beautiful." As for their forthcoming nuptials, Love says she and Haynes are hoping for something "big and a little luxe."
She runs her own small business
In addition to being a professional sports host, model, and fitness instructor, Ally Love is also a passionate entrepreneur. Though her female empowerment collective Love Squad continues to grow and expand, it was born from humble beginnings. "I created Love Squad because I wanted to start writing," Love told thecnnekt in 2017. "I went to a casting and this woman told me that there were three things they looked for. She said 'a personality which you have but someone who can also write the scripts and edit.'" Eventually, Love's blog began to attract attention from brands like Adidas, who asked her to create content for them.
Love Squad then expanded into a merchandise line, and now, it serves as an event space, hosting motivational panels and workshops. "I created Love Squad because I wanted to empower my community to say, let's get back to the basics," she told Forbes. "What's the first step in building your career? How to get yourself moving, how to stay motivated, how to understand and recognize your purpose, and how that plays into being a motivational tool to direct you to where you want to go."
She's a huge fan of stand-up comedy
Though she's made a career as a public figure, Ally Love remains in awe of stand-up comedians. Speaking to the Times in 2019, Love revealed that she and Haynes like to end their weekends at the Village Underground comedy club in New York City. "We always meet up for comedy and dinner," she said. "We love to laugh, so comedy is perfect — we thoroughly enjoy and respect those who can get up, live, and make people laugh."
Love continued: "Making people laugh on the spot is real talent. Anyone can tell one good joke, but very few people can thread jokes together to tell a story, be impactful, and just make it super funny. My favorite comics include Hasan Minhaj, Stephen Colbert, Kevin James."
Given the sense of humor she often brings to her Peloton classes, some might consider Love herself a comedian. We're willing to bet she'd be a natural at it.