JUST DO IT:
Body Evolutions founder Billy Macagnone, here demonstrating his Gyrotonic workout, allegedly is a sex addict who can’t stop seducing his students. (
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An East Village fitness studio is going to the downward-facing dogs because its “master trainer” can’t keep his hands off the clientele, according to a blockbuster new lawsuit.
Body Evolutions founder Billy Macagnone routinely sleeps with clients and other instructors and then breaks up with them on Facebook, his business partner Renee Linnell says in her Manhattan Supreme Court suit.
The suit says his “abuse and betrayal of women” who thought they were going to a peaceful “sanctuary” to practice Gyrotonics, a low-impact stretching and exercise workout, has “severely damaged” their East 10th Street business.
Some clients and teaches wound up getting much more than that — Macagnone was “improperly abusing his position as a teacher and authorized Gyrotonic master trainer to seduce and sleep with both trainers and clients — serially and simultaneously,” the suit says.
“I have no comment, dear,” Macagnone, 50, told a female Post reporter.
Linnell, a former professional dancer, said she first met Macagnone at a karate studio in December 2010 and signed up for private lessons with him at his Body Evolutions studio five months later. “They became romantically involved, but she ended that aspect of their relationship in October 2011,” her papers say.
She believed in his work, however, and last December invested $225,000 with him to become half-owner of his studio.
She soon noticed a problem with the “face” of the studio — he was rarely there, the suit says, and rarely taught any classes. They were forced to hire additional employees to “keep the studio operable,” the suit says.
Linnell soon figured out where he was — in his apartment above the studio having very private workout sessions.
Linnell “discovered that Macagnone’s absence from the studio was due in large part to his being a self-admitted ‘sex addict,’ ” the suit says. The reason he “required frequent ‘naps’ in his apartment above the studio was to preserve his energy for these activities,” the suit says.
“The numerous and frequent affairs resulted in substantial loss of business” because “Macagnone drove away clients when he inevitably ended his brief sexual affairs with them by posting messages on Facebook,” the suit says.
The fifth-degree black belt had also been suspended from teaching at a karate studio because of similar behavior, the suit says.
Linnell wants back the money she invested and to end her business relationship with Macagnone. The suit also seeks an unspecified amount of money damages.