California has a way of chewing people up and spitting them out — taxing them on the way down, of course. But every now and then, someone who escaped the Golden State’s gravitational pull of misery turns around and tells the truth about why they left. And when that person is Jillian Michaels — the woman who made millions of Americans cry doing burpees on national television — you better believe she’s not going to sugarcoat it.

Michaels, who fled California back in 2021 like a refugee from a dumpster fire (a comparison that’s uncomfortably literal given the state’s wildfire track record), sat down with the California Post and absolutely torched Governor Gavin Newsom. Not with a flamethrower — with receipts.

“It’s the state with the highest cost of living. Highest gas prices, highest income tax, the highest housing, highest rent, highest everything,” Michaels said.

“And people get nothing for the money they’re paying.”

Read that again. The woman who built her career telling people “no pain, no gain” just told California that all pain and no gain is a terrible deal. Hard to argue with the math.

The Two-Faced Governor

But Michaels wasn’t just lobbing general complaints about California’s cost of living — she went straight for the man she holds responsible. And she did not hold back.

“He’ll go sit with Ben Shapiro and tell him that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) isn’t the Gestapo, and then he will go to the World Economic Forum (WEF) and tell everybody ICE is the Gestapo,” she said.

That right there is the Newsom playbook distilled into one sentence. The guy has more faces than a deck of cards and less authenticity than a three-dollar bill.

“He tries to be something to everyone, which just shows you how totally inauthentic the guy is,” Michaels added. “He’s the quintessential politician. He is a true sociopath.”

Sociopath. That’s not a word you toss around at a cocktail party. That’s a word you use when you’ve watched someone lie so smoothly, so consistently, and with such a polished smile that it stops being annoying and starts being clinical.

The State Burns While Newsom Vetoes

And here’s where it gets infuriating. Last October, Newsom vetoed legislation designed to enhance wildfire prevention through stricter forest management planning. The state that catches fire like a box of matches soaked in gasoline had a chance to actually do something about it — and their governor said no thanks.

“The state burns down every five seconds and it’s absolutely manageable. And yet, everything is done wrong — but it’s so obvious how to fix it,” Michaels said.

“You should have not vetoed the bill for forestry management.”

She also hammered Newsom for vetoing a 2022 bill that would have blocked foreign governments — specifically China — from buying agricultural land in California.

“This is what I mean when I tell you he is far and away, in my opinion, more corrupt than any mayor, than any governor I have ever experienced in my lifetime,” she said. “And even when you look at his relationship with China, go back to when he was the mayor of San Francisco. They would clear out the red tape for these guys to do what they wanted.”

A Center-Right Convert With No Regrets

Michaels, who now lives in Wyoming with her family, describes herself as center-right. She voted for Trump in 2024 as a “lesser evil” — the kind of honest, no-nonsense assessment you’d expect from someone who’s spent years telling people to stop making excuses and get on the treadmill.

Left-wing politics have gotten “out of control” in California, she said, pointing to the ever-growing homeless crisis. “It’s not working — the homeless problem only continues to grow. Billions are lost or mismanaged.”

She also threw her support behind RFK Jr.’s nutrition overhaul at HHS, framing it exactly the way a fitness expert would.

“Whether you like him or not, the reality is the food pyramid shift is not about telling you and I what to eat. It’s about redirecting the subsidy flows,” Michaels said, backing Kennedy’s move to end federal subsidies for junk food and sugary drinks.

There’s something poetic about California’s situation. The state that lectures the rest of America about how to live can’t keep its own lights on, its forests from burning, or its residents from fleeing to Wyoming. And when a fitness icon known for screaming motivational truths at people on “The Biggest Loser” calls your governor a true sociopath, maybe — just maybe — it’s time to stop doing crunches and start doing some soul-searching.

Newsom won’t, of course. Sociopaths rarely do.