8 more women sue SLO County gym where man allegedly filmed them naked
Eight more women are suing Planet Fitness after a man allegedly filmed them and nearly 40 other women partially or fully naked in the tanning booths at the gym’s Arroyo Grande location over the course of a year.
The lawsuits claimed gym staff should have stopped the man from filming and accused Planet Fitness of “gross negligence, invasion of right to privacy, as well as intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress,” a news release announcing one of the lawsuits said.
Two new lawsuits alleging three additional victims come after an 18-year-old woman similarly sued the gym and its national franchiser in April — and five more victims have since been added to the original lawsuit.
All nine victims are using anonymous aliases to protect their identities, and all three lawsuits name California resident Kyle Combs as the suspect, alleging that he took the videos between January 2025 and December 2025 when he was a member at the Planet Fitness in Arroyo Grande.
The Arroyo Grande Police Department identified Combs by matching video footage to his Planet Fitness profile picture, the complaints said.
The Arroyo Grande Police Department did not immediately respond to The Tribune’s requests for comment.
Man filmed 47 people undressed in Planet Fitness tanning booth, police say
The law firms of Galine, Frye, Fitting & Frangos and the Law Offices of Tristan Verburgt filed one of the complaints on May 28 on behalf of two women, who used aliases Jane Doe 1 and 2 to protect their identities.
The two women from the latest lawsuit, ages 40 and 46, regularly used the gym’s tanning booths between 2022 and 2026, the complaint said.
They each held a “Black Card” membership, which granted them access to the spa with the tanning booths.
Combs allegedly took at least two videos of one of the women undressed in a tanning booth on Jan. 19, 2025, and Sept. 2, the complaint said.
He allegedly took at least three videos of the other woman on May 7, 13 and 16 in 2025, the complaint said.
The tanning booths are in a separate room in the back of the gym behind glass doors, which are next to a customer service area normally staffed by a gym employee. The spa includes a small waiting area with couches, lounge chairs and a television.
The tanning booths are behind locked doors, the complaint said.
Combs allegedly used his thumb and thumbnail to unlock the door without a key, then used his cell phone to film the women through a gap in the tanning booth, the complaint said.
Another lawsuit, brought by Frederick Law Firm on behalf of an anonymous Jane Roe on June 3, said the locks on the tanning booth doors did not lock properly.
Roe was filmed at least three times, according to the lawsuit. One of the times, she saw an arm poking into her tanning booth holding a phone. Another time, on Dec. 20, 2025, she heard someone enter the supposedly locked room when she was inside the tanning booth.
She reported the intrusion in writing to Planet Fitness, after which the gym “added a chain lock to the tanning-room door and posted a sign commenting on safety,” the lawsuit said. She requested security footage of the incident, but the gym responded that they had none of that area and that camera footage from other areas of the gym expired after two weeks.
Unlike Jane Roe, Jane Doe 1 and 2 had no knowledge they were being filmed.
The Arroyo Grande Police Department secured a warrant to search Combs’ phone back to January 2025, and officers found videos of 47 people partially or fully naked in the tanning booths, according to a previous Police Department news release. The department at that time had not publicly released Combs’ name, though on Tuesday it confirmed his identity as the suspect in the case.
On April 17, the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office told the women that they were among the people filmed in the tanning booths.
Their lawsuit said Planet Fitness employees should have seen Combs taking the videos and stopped him.
“In order to take these videos, Combs would have had to repeatedly patronize the Planet Fitness Arroyo Grande and enter the Black Card Spa area where his actions would have been visible to employees working at the desk near the tanning booths and checking members into the gym, and monitoring the building’s entrances and exits,” the complaint said.
In a news release, attorney Ilya Frangos said “gym members have a reasonable expectation of privacy while using tanning booth rooms in Planet Fitness facilities, and Planet Fitness had an ongoing responsibility to take measures to prevent circumstances like this from occurring.”
“No one should have to wonder whether they are being secretly recorded while undressed in a place that is supposed to be safe and private,” Frangos said.
Planet Fitness knew about ‘electronic peeping,’ lawsuits claims
Jane Roe was not the first alleged victim to raise concerns to the gym about Combs.
A woman identified as Jane Doe 2 — one of five new women added to the original lawsuit filed by Hadsell Stormer Renick & Dai LLP and Binder Law Group on April 28 — reported Combs as a threat to Planet Fitness as early as May 28, 2025, but the gym “had not taken her seriously,” an amended complaint filed June 8 said.
She had sent a text while in the tanning booth, and when she went to put her phone down in the changing room outside the booth, she saw Combs, the complaint said.
Doe 2 screamed, and Combs fled, the complaint said. She dressed and ran to the front desk to tell an employee what Combs had done, begging for the employee and a manager to help her, but they refused, the complaint said.
“Instead, they laughed at her and said that she should have locked the door behind her,” the complaint said.
When she insisted she had locked the door, they dismissed her and said “there was nothing wrong with the locks,” the complaint said.
That was seven months before Combs filmed Jane Doe 1, who was 18 at the time.
The amended complaint — which also sues Combs now — alleged that Planet Fitness and its national franchiser “failed to take reasonable precautions against this known danger” and allowed “dozens of other women to be sexually victimized.”
Like the women who sued in May, four of the five women added to the April lawsuit were not aware they had been filmed by Combs until they were notified by law enforcement or themselves contacted the police after reading news reports about the gym.
“At no point did Planet Fitness warn her that she may have been one of Combs’s victims,” the amended complaint said of one of the women.
The women all reported experiencing high levels of anxiety, trauma and feelings of being unsafe after the incidents, the complaint said. Multiple have reported starting therapy, and none are members of Planet Fitness any longer.
Many have stopped going to gyms altogether out of fear, the complaint said.
Each of the three lawsuits has upcoming court hearings in the coming months, all being heard by the same SLO County judge.
Jane Roe’s lawsuit and the May lawsuit filed on behalf of the two anonymous women are both scheduled for case management conferences on Sept. 28 in the same courtroom, while the original lawsuit with a total of six plaintiffs now will return to court on Sept. 9 in front of that same judge.
A manager of the Arroyo Grande location said they “have no comment on the club level,” because they have no additional information.
A spokesperson for Planet Fitness corporate responded to a Tribune request for comment with an emailed statement.
“At Planet Fitness, the safety and privacy of our members is our top priority, and we do not tolerate inappropriate behavior of any kind,” the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson confirmed the Arroyo Grande location has cancelled Combs’ membership and was working closely with local police.
“As this is an ongoing investigation, we refer any additional inquiries to the local authorities,” the spokesperson said.
The Flynn Group, which owns Planet Fitness, did not immediately respond to a Tribune request for comment.
This story was originally published June 16, 2026 at 9:42 AM.
