Who Was Gwen Shamblin?

By Rahul Gupta On Feb 8, 2023

Who was Gwen Shamblin in “The Way Down” on HBO? Gwen Shamblin is an American author and Diet Guru born on February 18, 1955. She also wrote books and started the Remnant Fellowship Church and The Weigh Down Workshop, which is a diet program. Throughout her life, Gwen was involved in a number of disagreements about her work and the church.

Gwen got married to David Shamblin in 1978, and they had two children, Michael and Elizabeth. In 2018, after being together for 40 years, they filed for a divorce. After getting divorced, Gwen married William Joseph Lara, also known as Joe Lara, and changed her name to Gwen Shamblin Lara.

Joe was an American actor who mostly played roles in action-adventure movies like Tarzan: The Epic Adventures, Doomsdayer, Conan the Adventurer, and more.

“The Way Down,” a movie on HBO Max, made Gwen’s story more well-known. The short series had five episodes and was released in parts between September 30, 2021, and April 28, 2022. Marina Zenovich, the director, tried to talk to Gwen and the Church about making the show better and telling true stories, but they said no.

Gwen died on May 29, 2021, when she was 66 years old. The Cessna C501 plane she was on crashed into Percy Priest Lake in Smyrna, Tennessee, killing everyone on board.

She and Joe Lara, who was her second husband, were two of the seven people who died in the accident. Let’s learn more about Gwen, her works, and her foundations, which have caused a lot of trouble.

Table of Contents

Gwen Shamblin Early Life And Work

Gwen got her bachelor’s degree in dietetics, which is the study of good nutrition and diseases caused by bad nutrition. She then got her master’s degree in food and nutrition with a major in biochemistry.

Gwen’s weight was a problem when she was in college, so she worked hard to find a solution. The Weigh Down Workshop was built on the work that was done here.

Gwen wrote many books, but her most popular was The Weigh Down Diet (1997), in which she talked about how spirituality could help people control how much they eat.

After that, she wrote two books about faith: Rise Above (2000) and Exodus Devotional (2002). We can tell from her writings that she was less of a writer and more of a spiritual dietician.

Gwen was a well-known person in the United States and West. Because she was so well-known, she was in a lot of magazines, newspapers, and TV shows. She told people about her program through these means. The BBC, Family Circle, People Magazine, Dateline, Larry King Live, and The Insider were the places that gave the information.

Gwen’s program, which was mostly held in churches, gained popularity in the mid-1990s. And by 1994, it had reached churches in many countries. In 1996, the program’s services were made available to about 5000 more churches.

By August 1998, 250K people were following the show, and in 1999, Gwen started the Remnant Fellowship Church in Franklin, Tennessee.

People took notice of how quickly the business grew, which led WTVF to look into the owners. The HBO Max show said that a child had been abused by the Remnant Church.

The church was the most controversial part of her life and work, and she left nothing to the church in her will. Instead, she left everything to her children and first husband. Was she really interested in the spiritual well-being of people?

Gwen Shamblin’s Net Worth

Her whole program brought in about $20 million a year, according to estimates. And Gwen was thought to be worth $100 million. Gwen has had a shady life. She was accused of encouraging child abuse, and she lied about her will. She said that her money went to the good causes of the church and the rest to the government, but it went to her family.

Many people may still believe in what she taught, even though I haven’t read them myself. From what I’ve heard, it’s also shady. Gwen followed the church’s teachings, but she got married twice. Her followers were upset with her for this. The last thing she posted on Instagram was on June 3, 2021, which was six days after she died.

I don’t believe people who talk a lot about God but then lie and live in a shady way. I think this is why “The Way Down God, Greed, and the Cult of Gwen Shamblin” is the name of the HBO Max series.