In July 2024, Richard Simmons was found dead at his home in Hollywood Hills just one day after his 76th birthday. But for many Americans, the most puzzling thing >> [music] >> was not his death. It was the fact that a man who had once appeared everywhere on American television had vanished from the world for nearly 10 years before that.
No more aerobic classes, no more sweating to the [music] oldies tapes, no more Richard Simmons dancing among crowds as if that sort of energy would never run out. That disappearance quickly turned into a national mystery. Podcasts, paparazzi, and television programs kept chasing an answer. Some believed he was being controlled inside his own home.
Others thought he had suffered a mental collapse. But behind those rumors was a man very different from the colorful image [music] the public had once known. An overweight boy in New Orleans who had been bullied so badly that he was afraid to enter enter the school [music] restroom. A person who once destroyed his own body just to escape the shame he felt about his weight.
Richard Simmons built his entire career from the very things that had once made him feel most ashamed. >> [music] >> At a time when America’s fitness industry was filled with perfect bodies and workouts designed for people who were already fit, he stood among overweight people, older people, and those who had already given up on themselves.
Millions loved Richard not only because he got them [music] moving. They loved him because for the first time, someone had stepped onto the stage without making them feel ashamed before asking them [music] to begin changing. Richard Simmons was born on July 12th, 1948 in New Orleans under the real name Milton Teagle Simmons.
He grew up in the French Quarter where music, [music] tourists, laughter, and small stages seemed to exist on nearly every street [music] corner. His father had once worked as an MC before working in second-hand stores, while his [music] mother was a fan dancer before later selling cosmetics. No one in the family was truly famous, but Richard grew up with the feeling that making other people happy was a necessary skill for survival.
Years later, when millions of viewers saw Richard Simmons appear on television with his energetic shouting and movements [music] that seemed almost exaggerated beyond measure, them thought it was a character created for TV, but in truth, that version of him had begun forming very early on the hot, humid streets of New Orleans.
Richard learned how to draw attention with a loud voice, with energy, and by making [music] a crowd laugh before they had the chance to notice the insecurity inside him. It was that childhood environment that created [music] the image America would later never confuse with anyone’s else. The biggest problem in Richard’s life arrived almost at the same time as childhood itself.
[music] He began eating uncontrollably at around 4 or 5 years old and quickly became the heaviest child [music] in his class. Richard would later remember very clearly the feeling of watching people laugh when he walked [music] into a room, the feeling of being called names and treated as an [music] easy target for bullying at his Catholic school.
There was a period when he was a afraid to go into the school restroom because he thought someone was waiting inside >> [music] >> to continue mocking him. By the age of 15, Richard weighed around 83 kg, a very high number for a teenager at that time, and later [music] his weight would reach about 122 kg.
What is striking is that [music] Richard did not fight back with violence or rebellion. He learned how to make others laugh before they could laugh at him, turning himself into the class [music] clown who always spoke louder than normal and always tried to stir up the But many years later, Richard admitted that much of that energy came from the fear of rejection rather than from real confidence.
Alongside his insecurity about his appearance was the powerful influence [music] of religion. Richard became a devout Catholic when he was young and once seriously considered becoming a priest. The idea of helping others began appearing in him very early, not as a career, but as something closer [music] to a spiritual mission.
People who later worked closely with Richard all recognized that he did not view fitness as an ordinary job, but almost as a way of pulling others out of the same sense of despair he had once experienced. In the late [music] 1960s, Richard Simmons went to Italy to study art through a student exchange program. [music] For Richard, it felt like the first time he had stepped out from under under the shadow of the overweight boy from New Orleans.
He appeared in small roles in films by director Federico Fellini, such as [music] Satyricon and The Clowns. Moving among film crews, long European-style meals, and the feeling that he might finally belong somewhere. >> [music] >> For a brief period, Richard almost forgot that his body had once been the thing that made him most ashamed.
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Then one night, everything changed because of a small note [music] left on his car. It read, “You are very funny, but fat people die young. Please don’t die.” Richard remembered that sentence for the rest of his life. Before that moment, he wanted to lose weight in order to be liked, to be laughed at less, >> [music] >> and to look more like the normal people around him.
After that night, losing weight turned into an obsession with survival. [music] As if every time he looked in the mirror, he no longer saw an oversized body, but a sentence [music] waiting for him ahead. The following years became an extreme war between Richard and his own body. He tried every [music] possible method to force the weight to disappear.
From diet pills and [music] dangerous eating plans to near total starvation. At one point, Richard lost more than 100 pounds in about two and a half months. So quickly that his skin [music] turned gray, his hair began falling out, and his body became severely depleted. One day, he collapsed in the street and woke up in a hospital when his [music] body was almost no longer strong enough to function normally.
But even that collapse did not end the battle inside Richard Simmons’ mind. When he moved to New York, he fell into bulimia after learning from a colleague how to [music] eat and then vomit all the food back out. Richard entered a cycle of shame, self-hatred, and eating disorders for many consecutive years. Sometimes gaining weight, sometimes losing weight, sometimes falling into despair because he thought he would never escape that body.
Years later, amid aerobic classes filled with disco music and bodies trying to breathe in rhythm with the beat, Richard could almost always recognize very quickly who was trying to stand at the back of the room so that no one would see them. In the early 1970s, [music] Richard Simmons moved to New York and then later to Los Angeles in [music] a state where he almost did not truly know who he wanted to become.
He had thought about art, had wanted [music] to enter show business, but most of his time passed in waiting tables to make a living. Richard worked as a waiter and then as a maître [music] d’ at restaurants in Beverly Hills where the wealthy, celebrities, and Hollywood producers appeared every night. What is worth noting is that despite always feeling insecure about his appearance, Richard had the ability to make an entire room pay attention to him with only a few minutes of conversation.
The battle with his body had still not stopped at that time. Richard continued trying all kinds of fad diets, diet pills, laxatives, and methods promising body transformation that were flooding America in the early 1970s. There were times when he lost weight very quickly, only to gain it back almost immediately.
People who knew Richard during that period [music] remembered him as some someone who always tried to appear cheerful, but behind that was [music] a constant obsession with how he looked in other people’s eyes. Hollywood at that time did not make things any easier, either, as nearly every image of health and fitness was tied to perfect, toned, and youthful bodies.
[music] Richard began seeking out aerobic and workout classes that were gradually becoming a new trend in California. At first, he was drawn to the feeling that movement made him feel less hopeless, as if his body could finally do something other than become a source of shame. But then one day, Richard was kicked out of a class simply cuz he was the only man in the room.
That moment did not create a major scandal or any scene of argument, but it stayed in Richard Simmons’s mind for a very long time. The studios in California in the early 1970s were full of large mirrors, loud musics, and that seemed to carry almost no trace of age or extra weight. The people who entered those places often already knew how to move in front of a mirror.
Richard was different. He still remembered very clearly the feeling of standing close to the door for a few seconds before [music] class, looking around the room and wondering whether he should he walk back out right then. Years later, when he opened his own studio, Richard did almost everything in the opposite way from the fitness in world he had once stepped out into.
Less judgment, less shame, and no requirement that anyone look [music] perfect before being allowed to appear. In 1974, Richard Simmons opened his first studio in Beverly Hills under the name The Anatomy Asylum. At first, [music] the place did not only have workout classes, but also the salad bar called Ruffage, reflecting very clearly how Richard viewed weight loss after many years of destroying his body with diet pills, starvation, and all kinds of extreme diets.
He did not want to turn health and exercise into a punishment or a prolonged form of torture like what he himself had experienced. [music] In Richard’s mind at that time, exercise had to be something that made [music] people want to come back the next day instead of feeling insulted the moment they walked through the door. The atmosphere [music] inside the studio was almost completely opposite to California’s fitness culture at [music] the time.
Richard welcomed overweight people, older people, men, women, and even those who had never thought they were confident [music] enough to appear in a workout room. While many gyms in Los Angeles were filled with large mirrors, toned bodies, and a hidden sense of competition among students, Richard’s classes were noisy, awkward, and full of people trying to breathe along to the rhythm of disco music.
Some people could not keep up with the movements after just the first few minutes, and some had to sit down in the middle of class. But, Richard almost never let anyone feel that they were doing [music] something wrong. He also did not behave like an ordinary trainer. Richard remembered students’ names, remembered how much [music] weight they had lost, and even remembered the personal struggles happening in their private lives.
Some people skipped class for a few days because they were ashamed of gaining weight back only to >> [music] >> suddenly receive a phone call from Richard asking whether they were okay. There were workout sessions [music] that ended with Richard hugging a student and crying right in the middle of the studio after someone spoke about years of being mocked for their appearance.
>> [music] >> People who later spent time at Slimmons remembered that Richard did not only want everyone to lose weight. He wanted them to stop hating themselves. The Anatomy Asylum was later renamed Slimmons. The name that would be associated with Richard Simmons for most of his later career.
But from those very early years, the foundation of the Richard Simmons phenomenon had already almost fully [music] taken shape. The person who had once been excluded from standards of appearance began creating a place where people like him no longer had to walk into a gym feeling ashamed. And from [music] that small studio in Beverly Hills, Richard Simmons began turning exercise into something connected to emotion, tears, and the feeling of being accepted, not just a matter [music] of weight.
From the mid-1970s, the name Slimmons began spreading across Beverly Hills in a very strange way. >> [music] >> There was no major advertising campaign or polished Hollywood-style fitness image at the time. People passed around word of a workout studio where overweight people were not looked at at all fears. Where older women still danced aerobics to disco music.
And where the curly-haired instructor wore shorts so short that almost no one understood why he was becoming a phenomenon. At first, many people came only out of curiosity. [music] But many of them returned because for the first time they had walked into an exercise [music] class without immediately wanting to turn around and leave.
Slimmons gradually became so crowded that many classes [music] were packed full. Richard ran constantly between rows of students shouting loudly, hugging one person, pulling another back to their feet, and almost turning the entire room into a party rather than a normal fitness class. There were people who walked into the studio in a state of near collapse because of their weight, divorce, or depression, then burst into tears when Richard called them by name in the middle of the crowd.
He did not stand [music] far away from his students like a traditional trainer, but threw himself straight into their emotions, asking what [music] they had said eaten, how they were sleeping, and what else they see still wanted to give up. Not long after, celebrities in Los Angeles began paying [music] attention to Richard Simmons.
Beverly Hills at that time was full of gyms for beautiful people and actors, [music] but Slimmons became the strangest place in the city, loud, chaotic, full of tears, and with almost no distance between the instructor and the students. Richard also began appearing on local TV because his energy was so different from the fitness personalities [music] of that era.
While many people talked about calories, body sculpting, and physical discipline, Richard talked about loneliness, shame, [music] and the feeling of wanting to hide from the mirror. What made Richard stand out more and more was that he did not hide the fact that he had once been exactly [music] like the students standing in front of him.
He talked about the years when he [music] destroyed his own body in order to lose weight, about being bullied, and about the feeling of walking into a gym, and immediately wanting to run away. That was what gradually made Slimmons a refuge [music] for people who believed they did not belong in the American fitness world of that time.
In 1980, Richard Simmons launched his own television program called The Richard Simmons Show, marking the biggest turning point in his career up to that [music] point. The show was built around a combination that was very unusual for American television in the early 1980s. [music] It included exercise, cooking, conversation, and emotional encouragement right on air.
Richard did not stand [music] in front of the camera like a trainer teaching teaching the audience how to achieve the perfect body. [music] He spoke to viewers as if he were trying to convince them that their lives could still change even if they had given up on themselves long ago. The atmosphere of the program was also completely different from what audiences were used to seeing [music] in fitness shows at the time.
While many fitness personalities built an image of discipline, coldness, and being almost untouchable, Richard appeared with excessive [music] energy, constantly shouting, running around the stage, and hugging people right in the middle of the program. There were episodes in which Richard cried when listening to audience members talk about years of being mocked because of their weight or being hurt by their own families.
He spoke [music] a great deal about insecurity, the shame of looking in the mirror, and learning how to stop hating one’s body before trying to change it. That was what made the show feel more like a collective healing session than a traditional exercise program. Richard also deliberately brought into the program people whom American television at the time almost ignored.
Viewers saw overweight people, older people, and bodies completely different from the Hollywood standard exercising on national television instead of only toned and perfect bodies. Richard did not try to turn them into before and after figures in the style of weight loss advertising, but allowed them to appear exactly as they were.
He repeatedly reminded people that exercise should not begin with humiliation or body shame because he himself had lived of his youth [music] in that feeling. The Richard Simmons Show aired from 1980 to 1984 and won four Daytime Emmy Awards during its run. After only a few years, >> [music] >> Richard Simmons had become a familiar face on American daytime television.
With his high curly hair, short shorts, >> [music] >> and an energy that seemed almost to spill out of the frame. But what made many viewers remember him longer than the exercises [music] themselves were very different moments. A woman crying in the middle of the program as she talked [music] about years of being mocked for her appearance.
An overweight man daring for the first time to dance in front of the camera. Or Richard hugging someone right on stage as if weight loss had never been only about weight. Alongside the Richard Simmons Show, Richard Simmons also began appearing as [music] himself on General Hospital, one of the daytime television series with the largest viewership in America at that time.
At first, >> [music] >> Richard was invited to appear on only as a guest character because of his growing fame from Slimmons and local programs. [music] But the audience response was so strong that his role was gradually extended over several years. Richard appeared on screen exactly as he did in real life, loud, emotional, full of energy, [music] and almost always making every scene more chaotic than usual.
Appearing on General Hospital brought Richard [music] Simmons to a much larger audience than ordinary fitness culture could reach. Housewives, older viewers and daytime [music] television audiences began becoming familiar with the image of a curly-haired man in short shorts, constantly [music] shouting and hugging people inside America’s most famous fictional hospital.
Richard did not try to change [music] his personality to fit television. On the contrary, it was precisely his excessiveness that made audiences [music] remember him immediately after only a few appearances. Around the early 1980s, Richard Simmons was appearing almost constantly on American television. In the morning, audiences saw him on his own show.
During the day, they saw him on General Hospital. Then he continued appearing on talk shows and evening [music] game shows. Richard walked onto sets in short shorts, sequin shirts, high curly hair, and a source of energy that seemed almost never to run out. He hugged audience members, cried on air, and talked about [music] weight insecurity in a way very different from the familiar fitness figures of that era.
Audiences began [music] remembering Richard Simmons not only because of his workouts or weight loss programs. They remembered the feeling that he made the people appearing beside him on on television look more like real people from real life than perfect models. Richard spent a great deal of time talking with overweight people, older people, and those who had completely lost confidence [music] in themselves.
And from that period onward, Richard Simmons gradually became one of the most recognizable television faces in America [music] in the early 1980s. In 1988, Richard Simmons released Sweatin’ to the Oldies and almost completely changed the familiar image of exercise videos in America. At that time, the fitness market was dominated by nearly [music] perfect bodies, high-intensity workouts, and the feeling that only beautiful people had the right to appear in front of the camera.
Richard did almost the exact [music] opposite. He stood among overweight people, middle-aged people, older people, and bodies that did not look like any Hollywood fitness advertisement of that era. Some people could not keep up with the movements. Some laughed while exercising because they were out of breath, but Richard did not cut them [music] out of the frame.
He let them appear exactly as they were. From the very first [music] minutes, Sweatin’ to the Oldies carried a feeling completely different from the fitness programs of that time. Richard did not stand [music] coldly counting beats or constantly talking about calories and physical [music] discipline. He shouted loudly, ran around the room, pulled people to their feet, and turned the exercises into something more like a disco [music] party than a tense workout session.
Old music played. People who had never thought they were confident [music] enough to dance in front of a crowd began moving, and Richard almost threw himself into the middle of them with uncontrollable energy. Amid the old music and the bodies [music] struggling for breath to the disco rhythm, Richard almost turned workout videos into something closer [music] to a party than a test of who was beautiful enough to appear in front of the camera.
American audiences reacted almost immediately. People who had never bought exercise videos before began seeking out Richard Simmons because, for the first time, they saw themselves on the screen. Not fitness supermodels, [music] not Hollywood actors, but real bodies, real people panting, trying, and still [music] allowed to enjoy themselves while exercising.
That made Sweatin’ to the Oldies spread far beyond the ordinary fitness world and become a pop culture phenomenon of the late 1980s. The entire series later brought in more than $200 million in revenue and sold >> [music] >> more than 20 million workout tapes, becoming one of the most successful fitness video lines in American history.
Richard Simmons went from being an instructor in Beverly Hills to a face appearing in millions of living rooms across America. [music] But, behind those numbers was still the same familiar image. The overweight boy who had once been excluded [music] from standards of appearance was now standing in the middle of the TV screen shouting to people like himself that they did not need to be perfect >> [music] >> in order to join that party.
After the enormous success of Sweatin’ to the Oldies, Richard Simmons’ empire [music] began expanding at a very fast pace. He wrote many books about weight loss [music] and health, such as Never Say Diet book, released fitness products, introduced the [music] portion control program Deal-A-Meal, hosted radio shows, and constantly appeared in PBS specials.
Richard was almost everywhere connected to weight loss in America in the late 1980s and early 1990s. But, unlike many [music] fitness celebrities of the same era, he did not build his image on distance or an unreachable sense of perfection. The most chaotic [music] part of Richard often happened outside the studio.
He traveled across America holding [music] free workout classes in shopping malls, where thousands of people came just to exercise with Richard Simmons for a few dozen minutes. In some places, crowds packed multiple levels of the mall, only to see him run out to disco music wearing a colorful headband. >> [music] >> Richard did not stand on stage like a star promoting a product.
He rushed straight down into the crowd, pulled people to [music] their feet, hugged them, asked how much weight they had lost, and cried if [music] someone told him about years of being mocked for their appearance. Many people who attended those events later remembered that the feeling there was not like an ordinary fitness class.
Some came only to lose weight, but ended up crying in the middle of a shopping mall when Richard told them they no longer needed to be ashamed of their bodies. Older women brought before [music] and after photos. Men weighing more than 180 kg dared for the first time to appear in front of a crowd without lowering their faces to the ground.
Richard almost turned those workout sessions into places where people openly spoke about insecurity, failure, and the feeling of [music] being excluded from the appearance standards of American society. The more famous [music] Richard Simmons became, the more he resembled an emotional phenomenon rather than an ordinary fitness instructor.
People came to see him not only to [music] exercise, but also to be encouraged, to be hugged, and to feel that they still belong to this world even if their bodies did not [music] look like the ones in advertisements or magazines. And during that same period, Richard began becoming one of the rare television figures who could turn weight loss >> [music] >> into something tied to loneliness, self-respect, and the need for acceptance felt by millions of Americans.
Entering the 1990s, Richard Simmons was no longer just a famous [music] fitness instructor. He had become a pop culture figure in America. He appeared [music] constantly on talk shows such as Late Show with David Letterman, The Howard Stern Show, and Rosie O’Donnell’s [music] program. Richard also kept appearing on game shows, sitcoms, major commercials, and programs [music] such as Saturday Night Live and Hollywood Squares.
As soon as Richard Simmons walked onto a set, audiences almost knew that [music] the next few minutes would be filled with shouting, chaos, and his familiar excessive energy. But just as his fame [music] reached its peak, Richard also gradually became one of the biggest punchlines on American television. [music] People imitated his curly hair, his shorts that were far too short, his high voice, and the exaggerated way he moved across the stage.
Richard was often treated [music] more like a comic figure than a real person with real wounds behind him. Many programs invited him on only to create chaos or turn him into a joke right on live television. Richard [music] usually still laughed loudly, kept dancing, and kept hugging people as if he were completely unaffected by it.
In 2000, a moment on Late Show with David Letterman pushed things further than usual. Richard appeared in a turkey costume and then rushed toward David Letterman >> [music] >> to hug him on stage. Letterman reacted by spraying him directly with a fire [music] extinguisher as a television joke, but Richard suffered a severe asthma attack right after that and the situation quickly became more serious than people initially thought.
Richard felt truly hurt >> [music] >> and did not return to the program for 6 years after that. 4 years later Richard was involved in another incident at an airport when a man openly mocked his workout videos. [music] After years of almost always laughing off every insult, Richard suddenly slapped the man right in the airport.
The incident was eventually settled out of court, but it revealed a very different side behind the always cheerful image on television. Richard could endure being parodied for decades, but humiliation was still the thing that touched the old wound from his childhood faster than almost anything else. Even so, Richard Simmons continued [music] working almost non-stop throughout the 2000s.
He hosted a radio show on Sirius, made specials for PBS, [music] appeared in Aspen commercials, and advocated for physical education in American schools. Richard once said he had maintained his weight loss [music] for more than 40 years and had helped humanity lose around 12 million pounds throughout his career.
But as he moved into the early 2010s, his body began to change noticeably. Chronic knee pain appeared more often, moving became more difficult, and Richard became increasingly sensitive [music] about the fact that he was aging in front of the public. Throughout his life, Richard Simmons never married and had no children. [music] Across decades of appearing in public, he almost never spoke clearly about his sexuality [music] or tried to explain speculation surrounding his private life.
Richard often avoided questions in a way that was both humorous and defensive, as if he understood that the public was always curious about him, but did not want to let them step too deeply into the last private part he still had [music] left. Many years later, when asked why he never started a family, Richard compared [music] himself to a priest who had devoted his entire life to his mission.
He said his fans [music] were his family. That sounded more like a television answer than real life. But for Richard Simmons, the line between work and private life had almost never existed clearly. He spent hours calling strangers who were desperate about their weight, wrote handwritten letters to viewers, and remembered even the smallest details in the lives of people who had met him for only a few minutes.
Richard fit with [music] crowds, with thousands of people dancing together in a shopping mall, or crying together in an aerobic class. But the more famous he became, the more closed off his private life became in a that was very difficult for many people around him to understand. The person who stayed closest to Richard the longest was ultimately Teresa Reveles.
Teresa began working for him in 1988 and remained by Richard’s side for almost the rest of his life. The very first time they met, Richard told her, “You will never leave here.” At the time, that sentence sounded like the familiar emotional excess of Richard Simmons, but many years later, it almost became completely true.
They lived in the same house, ate together, traveled together, and stayed beside each other for more than three decades. [music] The relationship between Richard and Teresa always made the public curious >> [music] >> because it was both very intimate and not like the traditional definition of love. Teresa later said Richard kissed her every day, wrote love letters [music] to her, and almost did not want to live away from her even for a short time.
But she also insisted that [music] the relationship was not sexual. Richard called Teresa everything in his life, while Teresa described [music] Richard as being like a father, like a best friend, and like a lover in a very private way that she found difficult [music] to explain in words. Toward the end of his life, the bond between them increasingly resembled two people [music] trying to shield each other from the outside world, rather than a relationship between an employer and an employee.
Alongside that intimacy was a sense of loneliness [music] that seemed to follow Richard Simmons throughout his life. He once said, “I don’t have a lot to give to one person. >> [music] >> I have a lot to give to a lot of people.” That sentence explains a great deal about Richard as a person. >> [music] >> He could stand among thousands of people and make an entire room feel loved, but [music] he almost never built a family life in the traditional sense.
People who were close to Richard for many years all recognized [music] that he needed audiences, needed crowds, and needed the feeling that he was helping someone in order to survive emotionally. [music] From the 1980s all the way to the final years of his life, Richard Simmons almost never [music] stopped being turned into a joke on American television.
People imitated his high voice, curly hair, short shorts, and the way he rushed in to hug audience members on set like an uncontrollable source [music] of energy. Comedy shows constantly parodied Richard, and audiences also gradually became used [music] to seeing him as a national comic figure, rather than a real human being behind the lights.
But even in those moments when he was made into a punchline, Richard usually still laughed very loudly, kept dancing, and kept [music] hugging people, as if if that energy stopped for even a few minutes, everything else inside him would be exposed. Many years later, when Richard had almost disappeared from public life, those close to him began speaking more clearly about how sensitive [music] he was to humiliation.
He was afraid of being seen as he grew older, afraid of his body changing, and afraid that audiences >> [music] >> would no longer look at him the way they once had. The jokes that had constantly [music] surrounded Richard Simmons on American TV did not always pass harmlessly, even if his outward appearance made others [music] think they did.
Behind that almost never-ending energy was someone who remembered for a very long time the feeling of being [music] mocked in childhood. In the final years of his life, Teresa became the one caring for Richard in reverse. When Teresa developed stomach cancer, Richard began writing love letters to her almost every night.
Some were very short notes written only to say how [music] much he loved her and missed her. Teresa kept hundreds of those letters in the house after Richard [music] passed away. As he grew older, Richard Simmons’s world became smaller and smaller inside his Los Angeles mansion, and that Teresa was almost the only person who was always there with him.
Richard also bought two burial plots, one for himself and one for Teresa. At first, she rejected the idea because she thought Richard [music] was being too emotional, as usual. But many years later, Teresa said she understood that it was Richard’s way of trying to keep the people he loved close to him forever.
After Richard died in 2024, Teresa said that what [music] brought her the most peace was that he had left this world in a happier state than many people had [music] imagined. The man who had spent his whole life trying to make others feel accepted was ultimately buried in the very colorful workout outfit that had made him an inseparable [music] part of America’s cultural memory for decades.
In 2014, Richard Simmons suddenly disappeared from public life almost completely. He stopped appearing on television, ended his classes at Slimmons, and cut off contact with many people who had been close to him for years. At first, many [music] people thought Richard was simply resting after decades of working almost non-stop.
But, as the months passed [music] and he still did not appear, curiosity began turning into genuine concern. For a man who had once almost lived through appearing before crowds, >> [music] >> that silence became far too unusual. People who had once worked out at Slimmons began [music] coming to the studio just to ask where Richard was.
But, he never returned. In 2016, [music] Slimmons officially closed almost without any public goodbye from Richard Simmons. [music] That made the sense of mystery around him grow even larger. The man who had once appeared constantly on American television for decades was now [music] almost completely gone behind the gates of his Los Angeles mansion with no one truly understanding what was happening.
Not long after, a series of conspiracy theories began exploding across American media. Some believed Richard was being kept inside his house. Some claimed [music] he was transitioning, and others thought he had suffered a mental breakdown or was being manipulated by the people around him. The podcast Missing Richard [music] Simmons appeared and quickly turned Richard’s disappearance into a national mystery.
The host followed every small trace around his life. While the public became obsessed with the question, [music] “What happened to Richard Simmons?” The pressure from public attention [music] became so intense that in 2017, the Los Angeles Police Department had to go directly to Richard’s home to conduct a welfare check.
After meeting him, >> [music] >> the LAPD confirmed that Richard was completely safe and showed no sign of being held against his will. But even that that [music] did not end the speculation, partly because Richard still refused to appear publicly. And partly because [music] many people simply could not believe that someone who had once lived under the spotlight would voluntarily disappear for so many years.
The truth only gradually emerged later from the people closest to Richard. He had undergone double knee replacement, lived with long-term chronic pain, and almost no longer had the physical ability to teach aerobic [music] classes the way he once had. But for Richard Simmons, being unable to move as before was not only a health problem.
It struck at the very image that had defined his life for decades. Teresa Revelles said Richard repeatedly told her that he did not want audiences to see that aging, slower body anymore. Once, he told her, “I don’t look as beautiful as I used to.” The sentence sounded simple, but it almost explained the entire final 10 years of Richard Simmons’s life.
The man who had [music] once lived among disco music, television lights, and thousands of people dancing along with him began to fear stepping out before the public. Richard still sometimes went for walks or drove around the city, but he often disguised himself in very unusual clothing so no one would recognize him.
He fed the squirrels and skunks around his house, continued calling fans to encourage them, and lived in a world that grew smaller and smaller inside his mansion. In early 2024, everything began changing in an unexpected direction. >> [music] >> Richard started appearing on social media more often, replying to fans, >> [music] >> and for the first time in years, beginning to speak seriously about returning to the public.
>> [music] >> He gave an interview to people, said he was writing a Broadway musical project about his own life and proactively called Diane Sawyer to discuss a major interview. The people who spoke with Richard during [music] that time all felt that he truly wanted to return to the outside world after nearly a decade of disappearance.
But only a few days later, tragedy occurred. On July 11th, 2014, Richard fell in the bathroom at his home in Los Angeles. Teresa Teresa urged him to go to the hospital immediately. But Richard refused because he did not want to be in the hospital on his 76th [music] birthday. He decided to wait until the next morning.
During that time, Richard lay immobile for many hours after the fall without receiving timely medical treatment. [music] The next day, Teresa walked into the bedroom and discovered that Richard Simmons had passed away. >> [music] >> Just one day earlier, he had still posted a message thanking fans for their birthday wishes and saying he was grateful to be alive for one more day.
The coroner’s report later confirmed that Richard died [music] from complications from the fall with heart disease as a contributing factor. There was no sign of foul play or any controlled [music] substances in his body. Even in his final moment, Richard Simmons’s family still wanted him to be remembered exactly [music] as the public had loved him for decades.
Richard was buried in his familiar colorful workout outfit. His brother said the family wanted to make sure Richard was still wearing his usual outfit to help [music] the angels stay in shape. It was almost the only kind of ending that suited Richard Simmons. Sad, strange, full of emotion, yet still trying to make everyone smile one last time.
Richard Simmons’s legacy does not lie in which workout he created or how many videotapes he sold. What made Richard different was that he changed how millions of Americans felt when they stepped into a room with mirrors. Before Richard Simmons, fitness on American television [music] was largely tied to discipline, perfect bodies, and the feeling that people had [music] to fix themselves in order to be accepted.
Richard appeared instead amid disco music, tears, and bodies that had never been considered beautiful enough for television. Richard allowed bodies that had almost never appeared on American television at the time to stand right under the lights without first forcing [music] them to feel ashamed.
Overweight people, older people, those who were exercising while [music] gasping for breath or crying halfway through stayed right there in the frame instead of being cut out like mistakes that needed to be hidden. Richard hugged [music] them, cried with them, and talked about the years he had hated his own body right in the middle of fitness programs that usually only talked [music] about calories and discipline.
Perhaps that is why so many people remember Richard Simmons not as an ordinary instructor, but as someone who made them feel for the first time that they could still appear in a crowd without [music] first having to become a more perfect version of themselves. The numbers surrounding Richard’s career were still large enough to become a phenomenon of their own.
More than 20 million workout tapes sold. Sweatin’ to the [music] Oldies brought in more than $200 million in revenue. The Richard Simmons Show won four Daytime Emmy Awards, but behind all of that remained the image of a man who spent [music] hours calling strangers just to tell them not to give up for one more day.
Even people who had mocked Richard Simmons for years later admitted that it was very hard to find anyone else in American show business who had truly given as much emotional energy as he did. Richard Simmons [music] did not become an icon because he was perfect. He became an icon because audiences saw someone carrying almost all of their own insecurities into the spotlight, yet still continuing to dance, >> [music] >> continuing to laugh, and continuing to try to pull other people back to their feet with him.
From the overweight boy in New Orleans who was afraid [music] to step into the school restroom to the man who disappeared behind the gates of his Los Angeles mansion. Decades later, Richard had almost never truly escaped the fear of being seen, but it was precisely that fear that helped him understand people who felt hopeless about their bodies better than almost anyone else on American television.
Perhaps the image that explains Richard Simmons [music] most clearly lies in his final years. A man who had once lived among thousands of audience members was now feeding squirrels [music] and skunks in his yard. Continuing to call fans to encourage them. And fearing that the public would see him growing older. But [music] even after nearly 10 years of disappearance, America did not forget Richard [music] Simmons.
Because behind the sequined shorts, the curly hair, and that almost chaotic source of energy was a man who had spent nearly his entire life trying to make people who had been [music] shamed for their bodies feel that they were still worthy of appearing in this world.
