Billy Blanks divorce, married, wife, affair, girlfriend, net worth, salary

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Billy Wayne Blanks is known as an American fitness guru, martial artist, and actor. He is most famous for developing the Tae Bo fitness routine.

<h2>Background</h2>

William Wayne "Billy" Blanks was born on September 1, 1955, in Erie, Pennsylvania. He was the fourth child of a family of fifteen. His father, Isaac was a factory worker and his <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maybelline">mother</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maybelline">Mabeline</a> was a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maybelline">homemaker</a>. He grew up in a poor, crime-ridden area of Erie and suffered at school because he had dyslexia and could not learn normally. He was awkward because he had an anomaly of the hip joints so he was often teased by both his peers and his siblings.

During this time, dyslexia was not commonly understood. Billy was placed in the same class as children who were mentally handicapped and children with deformities. Around this time, his life changed. He saw a martial arts film with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Lee">Bruce Lee</a> and that is when he decided to start martial arts training. Because of his hip joints that made him seem clumsy, his family and coaches did not think he would achieve much with his martial arts.

<h2>Relationships</h2>

Billy met his wife when she was 17 and she had a daughter named Shellie who was two years old from another relationship. Billy was 20 at the time and they decided to get married after dating. Soon after they got married, they had a son and named him Billy Blanks Jr.

It was only when his wife started suspecting that he could be suffering from dyslexia when he was 37 did he discover he was dyslexic. The way she found out that he was dyslexic she asked him to read a sign at the mall and he read it backward. Billy and Gayle got divorced in 2008. He then started dating Tomoko Sato. Tomoko Sato was a Japanese interpreter. After a romantic relationship, they ended up getting married. They had a daughter named Angelika Blanks. She had two children from a previous marriage named Erika Peterson and Marriott Peterson.

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<h2>Career</h2>

Billy Blanks started his martial arts career at the age of fourteen. Even though he suffered from the handicap of having bad hips, the karate discipline transformed his body. He won his first world championship when he was 16 years of age and he went on to win seven world championships. As a 7th degree Black Belt, he boasted one of the best records the United States has ever seen. He also holds the Tri-State Champion of Champions boxing title.

During his career, he won thirty International Gold Medals and was rated number 1 or 2 in the United States for 7 years. He had over 300 career victories and in 1982 was inducted into the Karate Hall of Fame. He was made the United States Karate Team Captain. He retired from competitive martial arts competitions in 1991 to concentrate on his acting career and developing his fitness center.

His acting career started by chance because he was employed to be a bodyguard for <a href="/biography/catherine-bach">Catherine Bach</a> for a shoot in the Philippines. This was at the time there was political instability and the directors were so impressed with him that they wrote him into the script of the film Driving Force and from there his acting career progressed. He has also acted in Lost Boy Scout, Talons of Eagle, TC200, and Expect No Mercy.

Billy used the fame he built from acting to fuel his career as a fitness guru and the development of Tae Bo which a fitness routine that combines tae kwon do, boxing, and aerobics. In the early 90’s, Billy was only known to a small circle of fans which used to do Tae Bo in at his gym in Sherman Oaks, California. This was a small gym and as the popularity grew he bought a larger gym also in Sherman Oakes in the late 90’s. His gym went from training 16 people to training thousands.

He started promoting Tae Bo through infomercials on TV. After the infomercials were released, the sales of tapes grew rapidly and over a million were sold in just six months. His routine was so popular with celebrities and fans that the fire department had to limit the number of people who were allowed to enter his gym. The business is a family run business and his daughter is an instructor at the gym. She has also now released her own training material which she sells commercially.

Billy Blanks is a devout Christian and he has released some training tapes with motivational prayers in line with his Christianity. The launching of the Tae Bo training tapes and DVDs created a very lucrative business and Billy Blanks net worth is estimated at $30 million dollars.

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