By Katie Scarvey
Salisbury Post
If a soap opera were set in a gym, it might be something like the Bravo series “Work Out.”
Granite Quarry native Brian Peeler is back for his third season on the show as a fitness trainer.
The reality show, which is billed as a “docu-series,” is set in a Beverly Hills gym, called Sky Sport & Spa, owned by Jackie Warner.
The outspoken Peeler, 29, provides a lot of the show’s drama, particularly in his antagonistic dealings with his boss.
This season, Warner ó who is a lesbian ó has a new girlfriend named Brianna. Last season, much of the show’s fireworks came out of Warner’s volatile relationship with her partner, Mimi.
The drama surrounding Warner will continue this year, and Peeler will be part of it.
His relationship with Warner is like “a pot of boiling water,” Peeler said in a phone interview last week from Los Angeles. “You know what happens when you walk away from that pot and leave it on the stove.
“I’ve been dealing with a lot of stuff with this woman for years now, and it’s finally going to rear its ugly head.”
What causes the conflict between Peeler and Warner?
“She gets very intimidated by me,” Peeler explained. “I’m the only person on the cast that will truly stand up to her.
“I’ve always been that guy, if there’s a pink elephant in the room, I’m going to point it out and call everybody else out for not seeing it.
“I’m telling you how I feel but I’m going to do it professionally until you cross the boundary and become unprofessional.”
And then?
“I can go off and it will do a lot of destruction,” he said.
On the show, Peeler is billed as the good old Southern boy with a big ego.
Peeler prefers to think of himself as confident.
He says he’s the same guy he’s always been, show or no show.
“I have my Southern beliefs … and that’s treating people right. Standing up for what you believe in.”
Peeler says that while cameras are typically rolling all the time he’s at the gym, he’s no longer aware of them. Although some so-called reality shows are partially scripted, the producers of “Work Out” do not give the trainers instruction or tell them that certain things “need to happen,” Peeler says.
After three years on the show, Peeler is still having a good time with it.
“It’s honestly so much fun,” he says.
This year, some new trainers have been added to the Sky Sport mix, including Greg Plitt, a former Army Ranger ó with “an amazingly shredded body,” Peeler says ó who has been on more than 50 fitness magazine covers.
In one of the early episodes this season, Peeler speculates that Plitt has been brought in to replace him.
Now, “we’re best of friends,” Peeler said.
Peeler will be prominently featured in episode three, in which he “is the butt of a lot of jokes,” he admits.
In that episode, while Warner and the female trainers are off working on a lesbian cruise, Peeler organizes the male trainers to participate in a six-mile run through a muddy obstacle course at Camp Pendleton. The event was a benefit for the YMCA.
Last year, Peeler lost one of his best friends, trainer Doug Blasdell. Blasdell was supposed to be in Peeler’s Salisbury wedding last summer, but succumbed to lymphoma. (Unfortunately, Peeler’s marriage didn’t last. By summer, he will be divorced.)
The show follows Warner’s Skylab project, an intensive program for overweight clients that teaches them how to exercise, eat right and deal with their emotional issues surrounding food.
Peeler’s most recent Skylab client, Shannon, achieved an amazing transformation that viewers will not want to miss.
“She is just gorgeous,” he said.
“It’s great to change somebody’s life and help them get their confidence back.”
He keeps an active training schedule.
“I have five today, and five tomorrow,” he said.
During the phone interview, a text message lets him know that the singer and actress Vanessa Williams wants to train with him ó the former Miss America wants to get in shape for a tour she has coming up in May.
Many of Peeler’s clients are celebrities ó probably to be expected in a Beverly Hills gym.
Training the rich and famous isn’t Peeler’s whole life, though.
He’s been working for the past year or so to get a project of his own off the ground.
“Think ‘Extreme Home Makeover’ meets ‘Biggest Loser,’ he said.
He plans to pitch the show to Bravo.
“It’s going to be an amazing show,” he said. “There’s nothing been done like this yet.”
He’s been in some independent films, including a horror film called “The Rift” that will soon be out on DVD. He’s playing a hit man in an as-yet-untitled project.
He’s also teamed up with a partner to start another company that will train actors who need to either lose weight or gain muscle mass for a particular role.
Oh, and they’ll do it in Hawaii.
And if all of that didn’t keep him busy enough, Peeler also has his own construction company.
Peeler used to work construction at Burgess Built in Salisbury.
“I learned a lot of stuff with Jim (Burgess),” he said.
Peeler was doing some small projects for clients, and when those projects kept getting bigger, he decided he needed a general contracting license.
So he got one.
Now, he’s doing larger projects ó including several homes.
Peeler will be back in Rowan County May 3-11. He’ll be at Cosmos Cafe, 300 N. College St. in Charlotte, for a preview party May 6. The show airs there at 10 p.m.
He’ll also be available, he says, for personal training and can be reached at peelerbuilt@yahoo.com.
The third season of “Work Out” premieres at 11 p.m. tomorrow, April 15. It will move to its regular 10 p.m. time slot on Tuesday, April 22.
Contact Katie Scarvey at 704-797-4270 or kscarvey@salisburypost.com