Has Anyone Checked in on Richard Simmons Lately?

I was just thinking about him this morning, OP

I thought he was rumored to have passed a while ago and then it came out that the story was fake news. Shrug?

Richard are you still wearing your short shorts?

Whom did he pass?

This story really does show how we exert ownership over celebrities, even one as B list (at best) as Simmons. If he wants to disappear, well fuck that — he can’t. Unless he gives us a reason and proves it’s true, we will just spin all sorts of lurid stories about the “real reason” he has disappeared.

And he’d better not call in his reply — show up in person or else!

Meanwhile on the linked story, about an American celeb….

[quote] But after his stint in hospital,

In hospital? Cheerio, guv! Bobs yer uncle! Job’s a good un!

It's just that he was such an outgoing extrovert that causes concern. Why did he just stop in mid-career? He's not that old, so it just seems strange

I still remember that total meltdown he had on the Stern show when Howard called him "feminine."

Latest photo ...

Woop - here you go!

He seems overly sensitive, maybe he just couldn't hack the teasing amplified X1000 that social media brought on him

R4 Exactly. By all accounts, he loved what he did and seemed to truly love people and the fact that he could help them. He would even come out of his house and talk to people on Hollywood tour buses. He seemed to get his energy from people.

Then suddenly, he withdraws completely from the public eye. It just doesn't add up for a personality like him.

He seemed very vulnerable in the last phase of his public life, and he was probably wise to simply retreat. I hope he wasn’t exploited financially by a caretaker or companion, or blackmailed by some associate. That situation could happen to anyone, anywhere. Online and in some social settings, there are so many people with nothing to lose by exploiting another individual, but especially someone very well known (and loved), but who might privately live outside of culture’s boundaries. This happens fairly commonly with media personalities. It’s rough and sad.

R7- I guess it was too much to hope for that Richard Simmons was marching in the Gay Pride Parade in that photo.

Maybe he had a stroke or other health scare and lost some function.

He seems like the kind that would withdraw if he couldn't be on throttle 300%.

That photo R7 was in 2013.

He had a terrible problem with his knee - and started walking with a cane, just before he disappeared from view. Maybe he just retired, since he couldn't walk properly anymore. Pride, plenty money, who cares?

You'd think a rentboy or maid or something would leak, though.

He and Brendad Ickson are on the lam.

R14 Well, hello! I called Richurd and askd if he wanted to joyn me and the other ladles for lunch, but he woodnt anser the fone.

He probably got fat

Does anybody have any intel since:

March 2016: "I am not kidnapped," the 67-year-old told Entertainment Tonight by phone. "No one should be worried about me ... The people that surround me are wonderful people who take great care of me."

Some guy did a fascinating vlog about him - but now I can't remember the name of it (or the guy). Apparently his long-time trusted maid left, he begged her to come back, and she did return. That's the main thing I remember. Oh and there was some footage of him putting groceries in his car at a Whole Foods or something - no cane then - around the same time? (2016)

Met him on a plane about 15 years ago. Super nice and talkative fellow. Very kind-hearted and sensitive. Just like we’d all imagine. No, he wasn’t wearing the short shorts though.

Oh yeah - I remember something else from the vlog. A long-time buddy, who he picked up to go to his class at Slimmins for years, said he just dropped her - and dropped out of sight - and she was devastated that he wouldn't take her calls any more. Just ghosted her, all of a sudden.

I wish he had picked a person or persons to take over Sweatin' to the Oldies. MARY! me but his workout videos were great, and he was about diversity decades before that was even a thing. He could have passed the torch to another generation.

He could have just "closed the door", as the saying goes when a celebrity realizes she/he is no longer attractive and retreats from public eye.

From DWTS gossip, I heard that Richard sold his Slimmins aerobics studio to Kym Johnson (a pro dancer on that show years ago - who married the Shark Tank guy)

So he did the Garbo "I want to be alone"

I'm guessing Simmons is living a 600 pound lifestyle and doesn't want to be seen.

Sorry - I've been misspelling it. The studio was "Slimmons"

Here's an article about its closing in November 2016

The podcast was annoying. The queen who produced it interviewed that evil cunt Willam from RuPauls Drag Race-Willam was a regular at Richard’s Beverly Hills studio.

The queen podcaster kept trying to get Willam to express worry or concern for Richard, and Willam kept replying that she didn’t care and wasn’t worried because it was Richard’s personal business.

Come back to N'Awlins, Milton! We still love you. You can sell pralines on the street corner again!! (we treat Jews better now - promise!)

Richard needs to dial back the shade of that hair dye.

His brother Lenny says he's fine - send his love.

[quote] Is he still alive? Is he being held captive by his caregivers? Is he still sweatin' to the oldies?

He runs a very energetic OnlyFans for $$ now.

A couple other tidbits, but I can't remember if they're from the vlog or from other gossip sources --

On his annual (for a while) cruises (cruise to lose, or some such), he would pamper the hugely overweight, but when people came back as 'success stories', having lost a bunch of weight on his programs - he didn't have much of anything to do with them. Wasn't interested in them anymore.

Also, he would get up early and call a number of followers personally every day, to see how they were doing with their weight loss. That suddenly stopped when he "retired" - and at least some of them were quite distraught that he just quit calling one day. Same with the studio, apparently the last night they had class, he didn't act like anything was wrong (seems like at the end of class, they'd all have a circular group hug and cry together? seems like something odd happened that last night but now I can't remember - it's probably on Willam's vlog)

My grandmother also kept insisting she was "just fine" and "in control" when the caregiving members of my family went out of their way to foster the illusion that nothing was wrong, even from the rest of us, while she was suffering Alzheimer's, losing her sight, losing her teeth, breaking her hip and so forth. And she had nothing to steal. It simply suited them to keep her at home even though they were unable to properly care for her.

She retained enough of her former self to tell the adult welfare worker to "buzz off" when they carried out a welfare check, so that was done even when no one was present in the home to help adequately with toileting and such and she was suffering bedsores.

There was a rumor at one point that he was transitioning to female. I'm assuming that was debunked.

It was debunked as far as him denying it and suing the [italic]National Enquirer.[/italic] The judge ruled that it was a frivolous lawsuit, though, and ordered him to pay their court costs.

R34 So could it be true?

I don't know, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if it was. He strikes me as self-loathing and uncomfortable with his sexuality. He really seems to be feeling the lady within in those [italic]Enquirer[/italic] photos (see link) rather than doing drag to make people laugh.

R36 Those pictures are frightening.

She's fine! She sends her love!

She and Susan Powter both transitioned and are now happily married.

It's amazing at this social media age that a once quite visible celebrity can just disappear seemingly overnight. Kudos to him for turning off that switch just like that - assuming it's really his choice and is not ill or anything.

I'm betting he's fat as a walrus now and that's why he gave up on a public career.

She’s dealing with bum knees and aging much better than Madonna.

I always found him nauseating,and am sure I still would, so don't miss him at all...

Is she going by Ida yet?

Dammit R44…you’re giving me flashbacks!

He is 73 years old.

My mother died at 74 from a dementia-related illness. It was tough to be honest with her lifetime friends. At our last vacation three years earlier, she lost her ability to get into a car; she couldn't get all the movements in sync. Other people stared at her. It was awful.

We shouldn't assume anything about someone over 70 years old.

[quote]I still remember that total meltdown he had on the Stern show when Howard called him "feminine."

That's interesting...I've met trans people who melt down if you get their pronouns wrong. That thing with Stern sounds similar.

R41, he looked quite gaunt in whatever latest photos of him were last published.

She’s fine. She sends her love.

I’ve been busy. Do you mind!?

Legal question:

Wikipedia says: In June 2018, he sued a Los Angeles private investigator, claiming he had placed a tracking device over a year earlier on the only vehicle Simmons used for transportation, noting that such tracking is in violation of California law.[50] In July 2018, Simmons amended the suit, alleging the investigator had been hired by In Touch Weekly and prosecutors filed a criminal complaint.[51] In May 2020, a California appellate court upheld a trial judge's decision allowing Simmons' lawsuit to move forward.

So... if Mr Simmons, let's say, had passed... would his law suit be ended or would it still "move forward"?

Though I guess we'd know if he died ??

This is the jilted blogger who was mentioned above. Lifetime missed the boat on this one.

[quote]There you have it, folks, an idea that is downright crippling: Maybe Richard never considered me a friend to begin with. Maybe a friendship that meant so much to me meant absolutely nothing to him.

[quote]And here’s the God’s honest truth: I’ve had this thought before, many times over the past few years, but I dismissed it. It’s a scary thought — one that was too painful to acknowledge. It’s been much easier to think that something was wrong with Richard than to admit to myself that our friendship was never real to begin with, that I was living in some sort of delusional alternate universe, a clueless fanboy blinded by celebrity, misinterpreting his words and thinking they meant something they didn’t.

[quote]Hearing Michael Catalano — a man that probably knows Richard better than anyone on the planet — confirm one of the things that I’m most fearful of… well, it’s just brutal. And now, I don’t know what to feel. I’m feeling all sorts of things at the same time.

[quote]Mostly, though, I feel foolish. Was I really conned, for four whole years, into thinking that I was friends with Richard Simmons? If that’s the case, than Richard is a masterful con artist, and an utterly believable, completely natural, completely pathological liar.

[quote]This wasn’t a one-sided relationship, where I projected things onto Richard — he played a very active role. I have years of memories of Richard saying to me, in person, in front of classmates, friends, and witnesses, the sorts of things that friends say to one another. Hell, he said them on national television, with me by his side. He told my mother, in front of me, that he was thankful I was in his life. I have a digital archive of dozens, possibly hundreds, of emails filled with acknowledgements of our friendship and what I meant to him. All of that is true… but all of which could have been lies.

Richard Simmons: Cult Leader. Who knew?

Think about it - 73 years old and still in the closest. That has got to fuck with your head and is not going to help any mental health issues you already have. I wouldn’t be surprised if he lost his mind.

You know I never gave dementia a thought with him. As long as he's been out of sight it's entirely possible he was diagnosed with early onset dementia or alzheimer's disease and is at the point that he may not even know his own name. And the people around him, taking care of him, simply don't want the public to know.

R55 I hadn't thought of that either, but it's definitely plausible and would explain the sudden exit from the public eye and him cutting off contact with friends.

His tv show from ca. 1982.

R57

.....

....that is....interesting....never knew he acted...

I never liked how David Letterman would spring exploding things on him during interviews just to get him to scream like a girl...

Was that prearranged? Or mean David being homophobic?

I still think there’s something shady going on. This was a guy that would go out in short shorts on a daily basis and would thrive from all the public attention.

It is completely unlike him to be a shut in unless he’s physically sick. I think the housekeeper, the manager, and the brother are just waiting on him to die so they can get the $$$.

He should be awarded a very deserving National Congressional Medal he would come out to receive from President Biden.

He’s fine, OP. I hear he’s holding his own.

David Letterman was unoriginal. He stole that whole Richard Simmons shtick from Howard Stern.

Dave had a lot of Ellen in him.

Or vice versa.

Ew. That's a picture.

He could have a number of things going on mentally or physical, but the police didn't see evidence of abuse or neglect and was in his right mind to make decisions on his own. That's all they can do really, unless they get solid evidence, that they're trying to do something to get his money and assets.

I worked with Richard for a couple years in his home and at his workout studio. His physical health was declining but not his mental health. He had a 2nd knee replacement surgery and didn't stay off of it long enough if I remember correctly. He also had 6 or 7 hair transplant surgeries over his lifetime and was losing a lot of hair. He couldn't get another hair transplant, and that was a big point of contention for him. He also suffered a breakup, which is where the "maid taking over" stories came from. It's all documented on the podcast. He was 65 and wanted to retire, that's what I think. Hope he's happy and healthy.

R67 I remember reading about him when I was young. When he first came back to America there were stories about his fame in Italy, and he spoke openly about his hair transplantation. That process is expensive and painful, especially in the early years of it. The poor guy. Maybe he deserves his privacy and contentment. He seems very sensitive and vulnerable to exploitation.

[quote]Maybe he deserves his privacy

Maybe?

R67 He could easily get a wig that would look way better than his real hair. So I don’t know if I believe that. And a knee replacement surgery would not be enough to make an extrovert like him just completely disappear from the spotlight. And if there was a breakup, that shouldn’t take almost a decade to recover from.

I still think there’s something deeper going on.

Even if he wanted to retire I don’t think he would have decided to become such a shut in that he hasn’t been photographed in 8 years. That’s just too extreme for someone like him imo. I think his caregivers are intentionally isolating him so they can control him without any threat.

Probably a longterm disease like Alzheimer's etc.