NEW YORK (Reuters) – Richard Simmons, the hyperactive fitness clown on television who built a mini-empire with his trademark T-shirts and shorts by urging obese people to exercise and eat better, died on Saturday at age 76.
Simmons’ manager, Tom Esty, told The Associated Press in an email that Simmons died at his home in Los Angeles. He did not provide further details.
Los Angeles police and fire departments said they responded to a home — whose address The Associated Press cross-referenced with Simmons’ through public records — where a man was pronounced dead of natural causes.
Simmons, who revealed he had been diagnosed with the skin condition in March 2024, had recently disappeared from public view, sparking speculation about his health and well-being. TMZ first reported his death.
A former 268-pound teenager, Simmons has become an expert in many forms of media, sharing his hard-earned weight-loss tips as host of the Emmy Award-winning daytime “Richard Simmons Show” and bestselling author of the Deal-A-Meal diet plan. He has also opened workout studios and starred in workout videos, including the wildly successful “Sweatin’ to the Oldies” line, which has become a cultural phenomenon.
“My diet and my food plan are just two words — common sense with a little humor,” he told the Associated Press in 1982. “I want to help people and make the world a healthier, happier place.”
Simmons embraced mass communication to get his message across, eventually becoming the butt of jokes for his flamboyant clothing and style. He was a popular guest on television shows hosted by Merv Griffin, Mike Douglas and Phil Donahue. David Letterman would prank him and Howard Stern would tease him to tears. He was parodied in Neil Simmons’ 1993 Broadway production of “The Goodbye Girl,” and Eddie Murphy donned white makeup and dressed as himself in “The Mad Professor,” shouting, “I’m a horse!”
Asked if he thought he could motivate people by being silly, Simmons replied: “I think there’s a time to be serious and a time to be silly. It’s about knowing when to do it. I try to combine the two. Being silly cures depression. It surprises people and makes them think. But in between that being silly there’s a seriousness that makes sense. It’s a different kind of training.”
Simmons’ daytime show was shown on 200 stations in America, as well as in Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Japan and South America. His first book, “Never Say Diet,” was a bestseller.
He was known to counsel obese people, including Rosalie Bradford, who held the record for being the world’s heaviest woman, and Michael Hebranco, who credited Simmons with helping him lose 700 pounds. Simmons would put real people—curvy, bald, or otherwise unfit for TV—in his workout videos to make fitness goals seem achievable.
Throughout his career, Simmons has been a reliable critic of fad diets, always emphasizing healthy eating and exercise plans. “There’s always going to be some weird thing about eating four grapes before you go to bed, or drinking a special tea, or buying these little beans from El Salvador,” he told the Associated Press in 2005, when the Atkins diet craze was sweeping the country. “If you watch your portions, have a good attitude and exercise every day, you’re going to live longer, feel better and look great.”
Simmons was a native of New Orleans, a chubby boy whose parents named him Milton. (He renamed himself Richard at age 10 to improve his self-image.) He would tell people that he ate so much because he thought his parents favored his older brother. His classmates would taunt him until he weighed nearly 200 pounds.
Simmons told The Associated Press that his mother watched Jack LaLanne’s TV show regularly when he was young, but he wasn’t a fan of the fitness freak. “I hated him,” Simmons said. “I wasn’t prepared for his message because he was so fit, so healthy, so positive, and I had none of that.”
Simmons went to Italy as an exchange student and ended up doing peanut butter commercials and party-eating scenes with director Federico Fellini in his film “Fellini’s Satyricon.” “I was fat and had curly hair. The Italians thought I was hysterical. I was the life of the party,” he told the Associated Press.
His life changed after he received an anonymous letter. “One dark, rainy day, I went to my car and found a note that said, ‘Dear Richard, You are very funny, but fat people die young. Please don’t die.’” He was so shocked that he went on a crash diet that left him thin but very sick.
After a crash diet, he gained back 65 pounds. Eventually, he came up with a reasonable plan to lose weight and keep it off. “I got into this business because I couldn’t find anything I liked,” he said.
When Simmons did not appear in public for several years, some media outlets speculated that he was being held hostage in his home. In phone interviews with Entertainment Tonight and the Today show, Simmons refuted the allegations and told fans that he was enjoying his alone time. One of his regular students, director and writer Dan Taberski, launched a podcast in 2017 called “Missing Richard Simmons.”
In 2022, Simmons broke his six-year silence, when his spokesperson told the New York Post that the beloved fitness icon was “living the life he chose.”
One of the tributes that spread online after Simmons’ passing was from comedian Pauly Shore, who had previously produced an unauthorized film about Simmons, which Simmons objected to at the time.
“I just received the news like everyone else that the beautiful artist Richard Simmons has passed away,” he began in an Instagram post. mail“I hope you are at peace and shining in heaven,” he added. “You are a one of a kind person, Richard. Amazing life. Amazing story.”
___ Mark Kennedy in http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits
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Associated Press writers Stephanie Dazio and Andrew Dalton contributed to this report from Los Angeles.
