‘Believed in everyone’
Trainer from A&E show killed in motorcycle crash mourned
The motorcyclist struck and killed by an SUV in Manhattan earlier this week was a passionate personal trainer who rose to national fame after starring on an A&E fitness reality show, friends said.
Adonis Hill, of Brooklyn, was fatally struck by a 2020 Honda HR-V on the FDR Drive near E. 36th St. around 11 p.m. Tuesday.
Hill, 40, was riding south in the highway’s left lane when the SUV hit the median, overturned and struck his Harley Davidson, throwing him from the bike, police said.
Medics rushed Hill to Bellevue Hospital, but he could not be saved.
The 25-year-old woman driving the SUV was also taken to Bellevue Hospital, but was expected to recover. She faced no immediate charges.
Hill, the father of a 2-year-old daughter, appeared on the 2015 A&E series “Fit to Fat to Fit.”
The show chronicled the lives of personal trainers who dramatically changed their exercise and eating habits to pack on the pounds, then joined their clients in losing the weight over a fourmonth period.
The show catapulted Hill to fame and gained him over 60,000 followers between Twitter and Instagram.
“If you made a friend with him he stayed your friend,” said Sade Dennis, who met Hill after the show aired.
Hill later appeared on Dennis’ podcast, and visited her home state of Maryland for his “Adonis Moves America” motivational tour.
“I spoke with him last week. His last words to me were ‘ Put yourself first and be happy,’” Dennis told the Daily News on Thursday.
“He was just as excited about entrepreneurship and business as we was with helping people find their best health.”
Alissa Campbell, who appeared on the A&E show with Hill, said her co-star was a “larger
than life” guy who always looked after his friends.
“He always made me walk on the inside of the sidewalk,” she told the Daily News. “‘Men should walk on the outside to protect,’ he’d say.”
“He would do a lot of volunteer work ... He was involved in the community, he changed a lot of lives,” she added. “He believed in everyone, he wanted good for the whole world. He was very spiritual.”
Hill’s final posts on Instagram came at the end of 2018, when he shared snapshots of his new baby girl.
“You don’t even know this yet ... but I will be your protector for the rest of my life,” he wrote in the caption of one picture taken on his first Father’s Day.
Days later he posted another photo of him smiling with his arms wrapped around his daughter.
“Who can take a wild guess on why this has been the best year of my life?” he wrote. “It’s so crazy because I could’ve sworn up and down that I just knew I had found my purpose until my baby girl was born.”