News from Ray
Ray Diaz and 1st Phorm: The Actor in the Room
News from Ray Diaz · November 2026
Ray Diaz wants this story to start with a thank you.
To Dan Fleyshman, host of The Money Mondays, who made one phone call that changed Diaz's life and never asked for a thing in return. To Andy Frisella, founder of 1st Phorm and host of REAL AF, who built that company with his own hands and put his brand behind Diaz. And to every person inside 1st Phorm who made him feel like family.
This is the story of how they positioned him, and how he proved them right.
Two worlds at once
There was a moment, right as Vine was fading and Instagram was becoming the new Hollywood, when a whole generation of six-second stars was trying to figure out what came next. Some became influencers. Most disappeared. Brands had no idea who to trust.
Diaz was standing in both worlds at once.
On one side, he was a working actor. He had played opposite Kevin Hart on Real Husbands of Hollywood, fought Scott Adkins in Close Range and joined George Lopez's family on TV Land. On the other, he was building an audience one sketch at a time, side by side with the most powerful names of the Vine era, the creators who were rewriting the rules in real time.
Dan Fleyshman talks about omnipresence: being everywhere your audience is, on every platform at once. When he looked at Diaz, he saw a man already living it.
Diaz was booking modeling campaigns and commercials, more than eighteen of them, including two Michelob Ultra spots that aired while he carried the 1st Phorm name. Mexico invited him to Riviera Maya to showcase the country through his content, and he brought 1st Phorm with him. He was in music videos, feature films and short films. He came up on Hulu's East Los High, worked across the major networks and went on to produce episodic series for Zeus Network. His audience followed him on Instagram, YouTube, Musical.ly (now TikTok) and every platform in between.
The New York Times took notice. In a story on 1600 Vine, the Hollywood tower where the most-followed Viners of the year lived, filmed and collaborated, the Times wrote: “A year ago, actor Ray Diaz had only 5,000 followers on Instagram.” By the time the story ran, he had 3.2 million, and the paper named him as one of the reasons creators were moving in. “Instagram is what pays for the penthouse,” he told the paper.
Off camera, he was in a relationship with the most-followed Viner in the world, a Guinness World Record holder. 1st Phorm came with him into that world: into their videos, the gym and the background of everyday life. Few brands had ever been placed in front of an audience that size, and few will be again. Diaz never treated it as a campaign. He was living it, and the brand went everywhere he went.
Very few people could walk into a casting office in the morning and a creator house in the afternoon and be at home in both. Diaz could. That is the version of him Dan saw when he picked up the phone and connected him to Andy Frisella.
The deal
Frisella does not hand his name to just anybody. He positioned Diaz as one of the first four male influencers 1st Phorm ever sponsored, and Diaz made sure the numbers proved him right. Frisella did not give him a script. He gave him a standard, and he expected him to live it every day, on camera and off.
The gym they built him
Then Andy and Dan did something Diaz will never forget. They built him a 1st Phorm gym inside Elevator Studios in Hollywood. A real gym, with the 1st Phorm name across the wall, in the middle of the city where he was trying to make it.
They positioned him. His job was to prove it, and he did, one video at a time.
He turned that gym into a stage. He brought the biggest names in the creator world through those doors to film, organically, and every one of their videos put the 1st Phorm name in front of their audiences. Model and actor Brock O'Hurn trained there. Three-time Bikini Olympia champion Ashley Kaltwasser trained with him, in her championship years, while another supplement brand was sponsoring her. She was training in the 1st Phorm gym, on camera, and nobody caught it. He brought his own family in, and he and his brother filmed there too. He placed 1st Phorm strategically inside the Vine and creator community, in the videos, the workouts and the rooms where that generation was watching.
Officially, 1st Phorm was paying Diaz to make workout videos. What it actually got was an empire under construction, with the biggest names of a generation lining up to put the brand in front of their audiences, and not one extra invoice.
It was also where he built his own programs. He filmed a 17-minute follow-along abs workout inside that gym and created his Fitplan programs there: a 30-day program, a 90-day program and another 30-day program after that. When he trained in other gyms across Los Angeles, he filmed for 1st Phorm there too.
The numbers
In his first year with 1st Phorm, his Instagram content alone pulled in more than 70 million likes. That was one platform. He gained millions of followers, and his videos regularly crossed a million views each. Every one of those moments carried the brand with it.
"They positioned me," Diaz says, "and I delivered."
The credibility
What he brought was not just abs and a discount code. It was credibility.
When the Lopez family went up against the Longoria family on Celebrity Family Feud, Diaz was at the podium next to George Lopez and Oscar De La Hoya, with Steve Harvey at the board and Eva Longoria across the stage. Oscar De La Hoya met him on that set and brought him in to work with Golden Boy.
That same summer he walked the Teen Choice Awards carpet with his whole team and performed with them, on a song that went platinum, for a crowd that knew every word.
A working actor with real credits, invited onto network television, recognized at the Teen Choice Awards, standing in the middle of the biggest shift media had ever seen. Everywhere he went, 1st Phorm went with him.
He even wore the 1st Phorm hat the night he sat down to dinner with Michael Jordan. He took it off for the one photo of the night, and held it in his hand, which the crop cut out. Didn't matter. Around that table, like everywhere else in his circle, he was talking about his sponsors. It does not get bigger than Mike.
That is omnipresence. He lived inside that vortex, and it is what makes him the consultant brands call today: he doesn't theorize about building an audience. He has done it, from the inside.
Breaking ground
In the middle of that run, Diaz was there when 1st Phorm broke ground on its new home in Fenton, Missouri, just outside St. Louis. Hard hats, gold shovels, a bulldozer and the whole team lined up in a row.
What went up on that dirt is a 185,590-square-foot headquarters, according to KSDK. It has a 16,000-square-foot athletic facility with a full-size basketball court, batting cages and turf, a 222-seat auditorium, and the podcast studio where Frisella records REAL AF.
The hard hat
Some people got golden shovels that day. Frisella handed Diaz a hard hat. In the world of building, that means something: the shovel breaks ground, but the hard hat is for the crew that builds what stands on it.
He still has it. It is a symbol of respect from Frisella and 1st Phorm, and a reminder of who trusted him to help build something real.
For Diaz, that hat stands for what 1st Phorm has always been about: leading by example. Hard work and discipline, every single day, whether anyone is watching or not. He carries that with him, literally. It is inked across the back of his neck: Lead by Example.
Diaz is a man of faith, and he leads with it. Today he is 41 years old and in the best shape of his life: fit, healthy and fully present for his family. "If you are in your forties and wondering whether it is too late, let this be your proof," he says. "It is not. Discipline does not have an age limit."
Summer Smash
Every year 1st Phorm throws Summer Smash, the closest thing the fitness world has to a festival: a stage, a pool and the whole Legion of Boom in one place.
Still on the crew
People ask how an actor ends up helping build a fitness empire. The honest answer: he was already doing the work. Andy and Dan saw it and gave it a platform, and everything he shared from that day on was the proof.
Standing on that dirt in a hard hat next to Frisella, Diaz understood something. You do not get rooms like that by asking for them. You earn them by showing up ready, delivering every time and never forgetting the people who put you in position.
Today he is a father, a partner and a creator with an audience of more than two million, and the standard Frisella handed him has never changed. The hat still fits.
"Andy, Dan, the whole 1st Phorm family: thank you," Diaz says. "I am still living the standard you handed me. Every day."
Keep listening
Hear Andy on REAL AF with Andy Frisella and Dan on The Money Mondays. Read how it started: December 15, 2016 and The Man Who Never Took a Percentage.
Quick answers
Who connected Ray Diaz to 1st Phorm? Dan Fleyshman introduced him to founder Andy Frisella.
Was Ray Diaz sponsored by 1st Phorm? Yes. He was one of the first four male influencers 1st Phorm sponsored.
Did 1st Phorm build Ray Diaz a gym? Yes. Andy Frisella and Dan Fleyshman built him a 1st Phorm gym inside Elevator Studios in Hollywood.
Where is 1st Phorm's headquarters? Fenton, Missouri, just outside St. Louis.