Sarah Jade is an American professional pole dancer, instructor and studio owner from Tampa, Florida. She is best known as the winner of Miss Pole Dance America 2016 and as the founder of Buttercup Pole Dance, the pole and aerial studio she opened in the Tampa Bay area in 2011. She taught herself the basics at home, built her skills over two years as a hobby, and then turned that private practice into titles, a business and a teaching career.
Her story is unusual because it did not start in a dance school. She found pole dancing at 18 through online videos, trained on her own while she was studying for a degree, and only later took formal coaching. This article covers the parts of her life that are documented in public profiles and reports: her Tampa roots, her education, how she learned, the competitions she won, the studio she built, and her marriage to actor and former wrestler Dave Bautista.
Quick Bio Sarah Jade
| Full Name | Sarah Jade |
| Profession | Pole dancer, pole fitness instructor and studio owner |
| Famous For | Winning Miss Pole Dance America 2016 and founding Buttercup Pole Dance |
| Date of Birth | December 12, 1987 |
| Birthplace | Tampa, Florida, United States |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | University of South Florida, degree in sociology, graduated cum laude in 2011 |
| Studio Founded | Buttercup Pole Dance, Tampa, Florida, founded in 2011 |
| Major Achievement | Miss Pole Dance America 2016 |
| Other Awards | Most Athletic, Florida Pole Fitness Championship, Pro Division, in 2012 and 2013 |
| Height | 5 ft 3 in (160 cm), as widely reported |
| Former Spouse | Dave Bautista, married in October 2015, separated in early 2019 |
Some details that circulate online about Sarah Jade, including exact weight, body measurements and net worth figures, are not confirmed by her or by a reliable primary record. This article leaves those out or flags them clearly where they come up, rather than repeating them as fact.
Early Life and Family Background
Public profiles place Sarah Jade’s birth on December 12, 1987, in Tampa, Florida, and Tampa remained her home base as an adult. That is where she studied, where she learned to dance, and where she later opened her studio.
Beyond that, she has shared very little about her childhood. The names of her parents, details about siblings and stories from her school years have not been published in any detailed, reliable profile, and she has not built her public image around her family history. Readers looking for a full family tree will not find one in the public record, because she has chosen to keep that part of her life private.
What the record does show is a young woman who found her own path. There is no documented family background in professional dance behind her. Her interest in movement came from watching performers and videos as a teenager, not from being raised inside a studio.
How Sarah Jade Discovered Pole Dancing
Two routes into pole dancing appear again and again in profiles of Sarah Jade, and they fit together. As a teenager working as a bartender in Florida, she saw pole performers at close range and was struck by their strength and control. At about the same time, at age 18, she found online videos by leading dancers Alethea Austin and Karol Helms and began studying how they moved.
She did not sign up for a course at first. She bought practice time on her own, worked through what she could learn from videos, and treated pole dancing as a hobby for about two years. That self taught start matters because it shaped her style. She learned by breaking moves down, repeating them and building the strength each move needed, long before a coach corrected her technique.
By the time she took formal training, she already had a base of strength and a clear sense of the flowing, classique style she later became known for. The hobby had quietly become the foundation of a profession.
Education and Academic Achievement
While she was learning pole dance in her own time, Sarah Jade was also a student at the University of South Florida. She studied sociology and graduated cum laude in 2011, which means she finished with academic honors, not just a pass.
That degree is a fixed point in her timeline. It explains why her move into teaching and business came when it did. She founded her studio in the same year she graduated, and she began competing at a higher level in the two years that followed. Her education and her dance career were not rivals. She finished one, then gave the other her full attention.
Her sociology studies also suit the work she chose. Running a studio is largely about people: beginners who feel nervous, students with different bodies and confidence levels, and a community that has to feel safe enough to try difficult physical skills in front of others.
Professional Training and Early Career
After her self taught years, Sarah Jade trained under Zoraya Judd, an established pole and aerial performer, and she also worked with aerial performer Jamilla Deville. Formal coaching refined what she had built alone, adding cleaner lines, safer technique and a wider range of aerial skills.
Competition results came quickly. In 2012 she finished second at the USPDF Amateur Nationals. In the Pro Division of the Florida Pole Fitness Championship she was named Most Athletic in 2012 and again in 2013. Winning the same athletic honor two years in a row showed that her early success was not a one off result.
Those results changed how she was seen inside the community. She was no longer just a studio owner who could perform. She was a competitor with national level achievements, and other dancers began to seek her out as a teacher and workshop instructor.
Founding Buttercup Pole Dance
In 2011 Sarah Jade founded Buttercup Pole Dance in the Tampa Bay area. The studio teaches pole dance alongside aerial arts, including aerial silks, aerial hoop, also called lyra, and aerial sling. Classes cover different levels, from first time beginners to advanced students preparing to perform or compete.
Current listings describe the Tampa studio, on West Hillsborough Avenue, as a large space with high ceilings, three studio areas and a stage, built for both pole work and aerial rigging. The studio presents itself as a welcoming place for alternative fitness, where students train for strength and confidence as much as for performance.
Building a studio that lasts is a different skill from winning a title. It means rent, timetables, instructors, safety standards and students who keep coming back. Readers who follow other performers who turned a skill into a business may also enjoy our profile of businesswoman Catherine Mooty, whose career likewise mixes public work with running her own ventures. In Sarah Jade’s case, Buttercup is the clearest sign that her career was built to last beyond competition season.
Miss Pole Dance America and Major Achievements
Her biggest title arrived in 2016, when she was crowned Miss Pole Dance America at the competition held in Nashville. A contemporary report noted that her husband Dave Bautista attended, spoke proudly about her win, and joked about his own failed attempt at trying pole dance himself. The event’s own video channel also lists her winning act as the 2016 champion performance.
The title capped a run of results that had been building for four years: second place at the USPDF Amateur Nationals in 2012, the Most Athletic honors in Florida in 2012 and 2013, and then a national crown in 2016. Few dancers put together that kind of record while also running a full time studio.
Alongside competing, she performed at events that are well known inside the pole community, including the Florida Pole and Aerial Arts Showcase, Pole Show LA, the Ink N Iron Showcase of the Stars and Pole for a Purpose. Each appearance took her beyond Florida and put her in front of dancers and audiences across the United States.
Personal Life and Relationship with Dave Bautista
Sarah Jade married actor and former WWE wrestler Dave Bautista on October 7, 2015, in Sarasota, Florida. It was his third marriage and, by all public accounts, her first. The wedding brought her a level of mainstream attention that pole dancing alone had not, and entertainment coverage of Bautista often mentioned her career and her 2016 title.
The marriage ended a few years later. Bautista’s public biography records that the couple separated in early 2019, and entertainment reports from that period noted the split. Neither of them has given a detailed public account of why the marriage ended, and she has not discussed it at length since. They had no children together.
That restraint is consistent with how she handles private life in general. Stories about public figures rebuilding life after a marriage ends often follow a similar pattern of privacy, as in our profile of Jamie White-Welling. For Sarah Jade, the public record since 2019 has focused on her studio and her standing in the pole community, not on new relationships.
One part of her private life she has never hidden is her family first instinct to keep relatives out of publicity. She talks about work freely and about family very little, a boundary she set early and has kept.
Physical Appearance and Personal Style
Sarah Jade is widely reported as 5 feet 3 inches tall, about 160 cm. Her build is athletic, which is a direct result of her sport. Pole and aerial work demands grip strength, core control, shoulder stability and flexibility, and years of training and teaching leave a visible mark.
Other appearance details repeated online, such as an exact weight or body measurements, come from low quality biography pages that copy each other and are not confirmed by Sarah Jade herself. Her hair and styling have also changed across the years in photos, which is normal for a performer. For that reason this article confirms only the height that profiles consistently report and leaves the rest aside.
On stage, her personal style has usually been described with one word she has used for herself: classique. In pole terms that points to smooth, flowing movement, clean lines and a showgirl influence, rather than fast tricks alone. It matches the way she learned, slowly and by watching dancers who valued grace as much as strength.
Social Media Presence and Brand Work
Sarah Jade has used social media, especially Instagram and Facebook, to share performances, studio news and workshop dates under her Sarah Jade Pole identity. Her following was built inside the pole and fitness community first, and mainstream interest followed during her marriage.
Her best documented brand work is with Bad Kitty, one of the best known pole dance clothing makers in the United States, for which she served as a brand ambassador. Profiles also link her to Grata Designs fitness wear. Ambassador work of this kind is normally given to dancers whose technique other dancers trust, so it reflects her standing among peers, not just her follower count.
She has also shared pole related writing and video content over the years, aimed at students and newer dancers. That teaching instinct runs through all of her public work. Even her brand activity is tied to training and performance, similar to the way other fitness creators turn an audience into earnings, a pattern explored in our look at Grace Charis and her social media and brand earnings. A fuller profile of her own career milestones is also listed on Famous Birthdays.
Sarah Jade in 2026
There is no detailed, verified 2026 interview or personal update from Sarah Jade in the public record found during research for this article. She has kept a low media profile in recent years, and recent coverage of her is mostly limited to biography pages repeating her known career facts.
What can be confirmed is that Buttercup Pole Dance remains listed as an active Tampa studio, and her name remains attached to it as its founder. Her 2016 national title also remains the result she is most often identified by, nearly a decade later.
Questions about her net worth belong in this section too, because they are the most common 2026 search about her after her biography. Online estimates conflict wildly with each other, ranging from a few hundred thousand dollars to several million, and none of them is backed by a financial disclosure, a court record or a statement from her. The honest answer is that her net worth is not publicly verified, and any single figure presented as exact should be treated with caution.
Final Thoughts
Sarah Jade’s career rests on a simple sequence that is fully documented. She found pole dancing at 18, taught herself for two years, finished a sociology degree with honors in 2011, opened a studio the same year, collected state level athletic honors in 2012 and 2013, and won Miss Pole Dance America in 2016.
Her marriage to Dave Bautista made her name known outside the pole world between 2015 and 2019, but it did not create her career. The titles and the studio came from her own work, before and during that period, and the studio is still the center of her professional life.
For students, her most useful lesson is practical. She did not wait for perfect conditions, a famous teacher or a family connection. She started with videos, a home setup and steady practice, then added coaching, competition and business skills step by step until the hobby became a lasting profession.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is Sarah Jade’s age in 2026?
She was born on December 12, 1987, so she is 38 years old for most of 2026 and turns 39 on December 12, 2026.
How tall is Sarah Jade?
She is widely reported as 5 feet 3 inches tall, about 160 cm.
Was Sarah Jade married to Dave Bautista?
Yes. She married Dave Bautista on October 7, 2015. They separated in early 2019 and had no children together.
What is Sarah Jade known for?
She is known for winning Miss Pole Dance America in 2016, for her Most Athletic honors at the Florida Pole Fitness Championship in 2012 and 2013, and for founding Buttercup Pole Dance in Tampa.
Where did Sarah Jade study?
She studied sociology at the University of South Florida and graduated cum laude in 2011.
When did Sarah Jade found Buttercup Pole Dance?
She founded Buttercup Pole Dance in 2011 in the Tampa Bay area of Florida, the same year she graduated from university. The studio teaches pole dance and aerial arts including silks, lyra and sling.
What is Sarah Jade’s net worth?
Her net worth is not publicly verified. Websites publish conflicting estimates with no financial evidence behind them, so no single figure can be stated as fact.
