Maintenance Phase - Growing Up Richard Simmons

00:00:00.000 all i know about richard simmons is like sad things like melancholy things but i'm trying

00:00:15.300 not to have like a melancholy tagline wow you really got surprised by this podcast i've been

00:00:19.820 planning for like a month we keep pushing back oh oh oh oh well this one's bad but whatever uh

00:00:26.140 Welcome to Maintenance Phase, the podcast that thinks tank tops and short shorts are

00:00:30.820 appropriate for any weather.

00:00:32.280 Yeah, I like that one.

00:00:34.640 It was not very clever, but it is accurate.

00:00:36.460 I'm Aubrey Gordon.

00:00:37.360 I'm Michael Hopps.

00:00:38.280 If you would like to support the show, you can do that at patreon.com slash maintenance

00:00:41.980 phase.

00:00:42.520 You can also get bonus episodes through Apple Podcasts.

00:00:46.520 It's the same audio content.

00:00:48.460 And if you live in Australia or New Zealand, you can see Aubrey in other ways.

00:00:53.600 Yes.

00:00:54.520 Jeannie Finley's documentary, Your Fat Friend, about yours truly, is in theaters now in Australia

00:01:02.180 and New Zealand. And as soon as it leaves theaters, it will be joining DocPlay. For all the details

00:01:08.680 on that and all of the screenings, you can go to yrfatfriendfilm.com or there's a handy dandy

00:01:14.860 link for you in the show notes. Aubrey Down Under. Something, something lesbian joke. Something,

00:01:18.860 something michael today we're talking about richard simmons we haven't done a good old like

00:01:26.260 influencer episode in a while just like here's a person how do you remember richard simmons i think

00:01:31.920 i mostly remember him from late night tv appearances where he would show up on like

00:01:36.000 jay leno to talk about stuff or i was really into those like best of johnny carson tapes that you

00:01:41.500 could get he showed up on johnny carson a million times i've seen all of those like 4 000 times him

00:01:46.020 then like Sam Kinison are like the people I modeled my personality after the thing is I don't

00:01:51.680 think he was like that great of a presence and I think looking back I think a lot of those

00:01:56.080 appearances were probably like low-key pretty homophobic oh baby and then I listened to the

00:02:00.500 podcast about him Dan Taberski's I thought excellent but like complicated podcast about

00:02:06.120 Richard Simmons and then he emerged to me as kind of like a more tragic figure well first of all

00:02:12.140 those appearances were not low-key homophobic were they high-key homophobic one of the recurring

00:02:17.400 bits that richard simmons would that people would call richard simmons on to their show to do

00:02:22.800 would be to like be like you're gonna be a guest on the show and then they would

00:02:26.360 hide cameras in his dressing room and do things to scare him oh so that he would like scream

00:02:33.320 and like jump up and down oh and like an effeminate way yeah i mean i think i remember him the way a

00:02:39.720 lot of people remember him which is honestly like I think societally we just kind of treated him 0.51

00:02:44.420 like a manic pixie dream gay despite the fact that he never you know addressed his own sexual

00:02:50.520 orientation right I'll say I just read as much Richard Simmons reporting as I could get my hands 0.93

00:02:56.620 on which is not a ton of reporting right including the recent wave of eulogies including missing

00:03:04.340 richard simmons all of those were sort of written in the way that you and i are talking about

00:03:10.040 remembering him right which is these sort of hazy fond memories yeah really light on details and

00:03:18.060 none of them referenced uh his memoir still hungry after all these years and when i read his memoir

00:03:27.860 It was 100% things I had not heard.

00:03:31.980 Oh, really?

00:03:32.820 Okay.

00:03:33.080 So this is part one of a two-parter.

00:03:35.840 Today, we're going to talk about Richard Simmons' life sort of before he became a household

00:03:39.880 name because there is a lot there.

00:03:42.800 So today is sort of about the messages he took in.

00:03:45.640 And next time is sort of like what he decided to do with those messages and the messages

00:03:49.540 that he put out.

00:03:50.420 Wait, I just thought of a better tagline.

00:03:52.400 What?

00:03:52.700 His whole thing was like sweating to the oldies, right?

00:03:55.240 Yes.

00:03:55.640 That's what we call it when people exercise while listening to maintenance phase because we're old and they're doing they're doing so many emails from people who are five to 10 years older than us.

00:04:09.580 Look, I am 42.

00:04:11.600 I can do this.

00:04:12.680 A heads up before we get into it.

00:04:14.440 This story has some really dark moments.

00:04:17.140 So we're going to be talking about anti-fatness.

00:04:19.700 We're going to be talking about eating disorders.

00:04:21.500 We're going to be talking about drug abuse, physical assault.

00:04:24.560 so just like basically buckle up yeah so we're gonna start out with richard simmons as you

00:04:30.040 might remember him so here's a little refresh i'm gonna send you a link okay

00:04:34.720 wow what a beautiful healthy looking audience

00:04:40.340 this is insane when i heard that this is your 59th video 59 video

00:04:53.140 29th DVD. Wow, that's amazing. Swen to the oldies five. I know, but hey, what are you sitting down for?

00:05:05.680 He thought it was like, you thought we were serving something? Yeah, that's right. He's going to, well, first of all, tell people everybody has, you know, I think aspirations to get in better shape.

00:05:17.220 What advice do you have for people? Number one, love yourself. Have a lot of self-worth.

00:05:23.140 Number two, lower your calories and watch your portions. 1.00

00:05:28.140 And number one, move those buns! 1.00

00:05:35.140 Can I tell everyone that? 0.94

00:05:36.140 What? Can I tell everyone?

00:05:38.140 Mama? Mama?

00:05:39.140 Mama wants to hear, Mama wants to see, Mama! 1.00

00:05:42.140 Gypsy. 1.00

00:05:43.140 Oh my God. 1.00

00:05:44.140 Anyway, it was from Gypsy. 1.00

00:05:46.140 I know, I know. 1.00

00:05:47.140 We can do, you know, Gypsy. 0.99

00:05:49.140 Yes. 0.81

00:05:50.140 Anyway, everyone, the audience is getting my new Sweatin' Five.

00:05:53.140 okay this is the energy that richard simmons was operating with all of the time this is also

00:06:02.300 the energy that ellen was operating on where she's kind of like let's get this over with

00:06:05.880 she's sort of officially joking but you can tell in her face that she's like 0.97

00:06:11.780 this is annoying the shit out of me hates it she hates shut up richard so clearly 0.97

00:06:20.640 funny she hates everything about it and i think that's maybe the greatest indictment of her yet 0.96

00:06:26.900 is like oh you don't like i know richard simmons i know the funny he's such a like ray of sunshine

00:06:33.800 yeah but also because he's so loud because it's sort of so sticky you can find it grating yeah

00:06:40.320 like this is projecting based on everything else i know about him but it people who act like this

00:06:45.440 oftentimes are like covering up for something yeah to have this much energy and to be this on

00:06:49.780 all the time just seems like it would be so much work yeah there was a quote from billy eichner in

00:06:55.000 one of the write-ups after richard simmons passed away he was very straightforwardly just like yeah 0.89

00:07:00.640 richard simmons goes in the long line of gay men who made it through by making themselves the joke

00:07:06.020 right like right yeah kind of people come up with strategies to fit in and you're like 12 when

00:07:11.700 you're coming up with these strategies right because you realize you're gay and you're like 0.93

00:07:14.860 oh fuck I have to like do something about this and oftentimes establish patterns that then are 0.99

00:07:20.000 very hard to break right the the way that you fit in in social situations is like the the habits and 0.99

00:07:26.140 the defense mechanisms that you developed by being in the closet and so I wonder if Richard

00:07:31.020 Simmons started doing this to compensate for something and then just like couldn't break the

00:07:35.260 habit yeah I mean I think part of the way that you make it through is by telling stories about

00:07:41.820 yourself like fully concocted but it's also based on as you're saying your kid brain yeah so it's

00:07:48.500 like as convincing as two kids in a trench coat yeah this was absolutely me in middle school guys 0.99

00:07:53.860 were like oh she's hot i'm like yeah i want to poke her boobs i want to play her boobs like bongo

00:07:58.900 drums so richard simmons for the uninitiated built a fitness empire in the u.s he had a 0.98

00:08:07.380 chain of gyms at one point yeah he had 22 dvds and 38 home videos including sit tight which i

00:08:17.080 think is kind of a great

00:08:18.220 not gonna make a gay joke i'm not gonna make a gay joke i'm gonna be i'm gonna be very mature 0.94

00:08:26.020 on this podcast i'm gonna stay very classy get ready because he made sit tight dance your pants 0.65

00:08:34.960 soft and no ifs ands or buts oh that was actually pretty good that's very that's very wholesome

00:08:44.060 he had one vinyl record with a bunch of ballads on it that he sang and he was an okay singer okay

00:08:52.260 fair enough he also made one absolutely incredible music video and you and i are

00:08:58.740 gonna watch it right now oh no okay

00:09:00.980 oh my god

00:09:12.640 get something cute get something girly 0.96

00:09:16.160 get something cute get something girly

00:09:24.120 oh oh just look at you i think you need a new hairdo 0.81

00:09:28.380 Aubrey! 0.99

00:09:30.340 No!

00:09:35.720 God!

00:09:40.360 All right, no, shut it down, shut it down, shut it down, shut it down.

00:09:43.240 Shut it down.

00:09:44.840 We're stopping this episode.

00:09:46.160 We're done.

00:09:46.400 We're done for the day.

00:09:47.480 I'm not watching Richard Simmons rap.

00:09:49.400 Look, I hope you can tell this was recorded in the 2010s.

00:09:52.480 I don't want to make fun of this man, Aubrey.

00:09:55.120 He's a tragic figure.

00:09:57.080 No, it's like I really genuinely enjoy this song and have been listening to it recreationally.

00:10:05.860 There are a bunch of stories about later in his career about Richard Simmons showing up to his gym to lead classes in drag.

00:10:15.340 Oh, and he does some drag in this video.

00:10:18.780 To me, this feels like we're getting closer to how he saw himself.

00:10:22.940 I love that you're trying to recast this as like an act of self-actualization when it's

00:10:26.980 a music video called Hair Do and he's rapping.

00:10:30.080 Get something cute.

00:10:31.340 Get something girly.

00:10:32.940 The thing is, I have exactly the same hair as him.

00:10:36.320 Any jokes about his hair, off limits.

00:10:38.980 Michael, are you ready for story time?

00:10:41.280 I know this man, but I don't truly know this man.

00:10:43.160 So let's do it.

00:10:43.860 Richard Simmons was actually born Milton Teagle Simmons.

00:10:47.800 Okay.

00:10:48.240 In the French Quarter in New Orleans in 1948.

00:10:52.940 Okay. He was born to Leonard Simmons Sr. and Shirley Mae Simmons. His father was actually

00:10:59.100 a professional MC before he was born. So he has a background in rapping.

00:11:03.580 And his mother was a fan dancer. What does that mean?

00:11:07.800 You know, the ladies who would dance like burlesque with big feather fans to cover up 1.00

00:11:12.180 their bodies like, whoa, salacious. I know about that theoretically, not personally,

00:11:17.500 but yes. Some sort of cracks started to emerge pretty early on in their marriage. So

00:11:22.940 When Shirley became pregnant, Leonard decided that he needed to quit show business.

00:11:31.080 According to his memoir, the day that his mother told his father she was pregnant,

00:11:38.820 his father started gathering up photo albums and headshots and publicity photos,

00:11:43.460 sort of anything from their showbiz careers.

00:11:46.820 He gathered it all up in the backyard and burned it.

00:11:51.680 Oh.

00:11:52.220 This is a quote from Still Hungry After All These Years.

00:11:56.040 He says,

00:11:56.620 This bonfire was not to be discussed.

00:11:58.900 My father made all the decisions in his house.

00:12:01.760 My mother watched from the kitchen window as he tore apart albums and tossed pages into the fire.

00:12:06.160 With the fire still raging, he strode back into the house, not saying a word.

00:12:10.840 He walked right past my mother and into the bathroom, shutting the door.

00:12:14.300 While he was cleaning up, Shirley quickly went out into the yard, 0.98

00:12:17.320 picked up a stick, and poked through the fire.

00:12:19.160 she managed to salvage some of the photos oh quickly she trimmed the burnt edges from the

00:12:24.780 photos and then hid them away never saying a word again about the whole affair so that's how

00:12:29.540 i came to have no family history oh god that's so sad so clearly this is like a third hand story

00:12:38.280 right presumably his mother told him and then he told his ghost writer and here it is in book form

00:12:45.440 right he was also i should say he was very open about his books being written by ghost writers

00:12:51.840 he was like i'm not a good writer he's more of a rapper he's more of a sugar hill gang

00:12:55.840 type of figure in america my guess here is that there is a kernel of truth to it or that it's

00:13:02.680 just straightforwardly as real story it's a really it would be a weird one to make up for

00:13:07.720 cloth right and it's painting a picture that resonates with how richard saw his father right

00:13:15.460 which is kind of a storm cloud of a dude and also when you have mercurial presences like that in a

00:13:21.860 family oftentimes the rest of the family adjusts to avoid these outbursts so i can imagine a family

00:13:28.200 based around not getting these weird blow-ups from his dad yeah absolutely things are sort of

00:13:33.300 engineered toward don't make dad mad yeah so his dad quits his job as an mc different places report

00:13:40.800 different jobs for him but the most common ones are that sometimes he worked in a thrift shop

00:13:47.400 but most of the time it seems he was just unemployed so his dad is a storm cloud of a dude

00:13:54.340 in the 40s and 50s right who is not providing for his family right that's also a cause of

00:14:02.820 volatility often yeah totally if you have weird stuff about masculinity especially in this era

00:14:09.040 right and you're not working and supporting your family like that's only gonna make that stuff

00:14:14.820 gnarlier dudes are weird about it dudes are weird about it after her years as a fan dancer shirley

00:14:22.540 became a cosmetic salesperson which also seems fitting for a parent of richard simmons oh first

00:14:28.480 i was in burlesque and then i started selling makeup you're like yeah did you invent the

00:14:34.160 bedazzler also right we all become a combination of our parents and i think richard did too he had

00:14:40.400 one older brother lenny who richard refers to as mr perfect and mr business those are like those

00:14:49.540 are like guess who characters okay it's really clear that richard and lenny loved each other but

00:14:54.940 that Richard felt really pitted against Lenny. Richard thought that in his parents eyes,

00:15:01.240 he was always doing the wrong thing. And Lenny was always doing the right thing. It's that sort

00:15:05.900 of sibling dynamic. Does he talk in the memoir about realizing he was gay? Or is this all under

00:15:10.800 the surface? He never discusses his sexual orientation in the memoir. Oh, my God. So

00:15:17.220 like, listen, the backdrop of this story is that Richard Simmons rise to fame almost exactly

00:15:23.860 mirrors the onset of the AIDS epidemic. Yeah, you're going on Carson, you're going on Letterman,

00:15:28.940 you're going on all these shows, and you have this wide appeal coming out, puts you squarely

00:15:34.360 in the middle of Pat Buchanan's culture wars, right? But then do you get the sense that Richard

00:15:40.440 Simmons like knew that he was gay and made a business decision not to talk about it? Or was

00:15:44.880 he in denial about the fact that he was gay? I don't have any sense of any of it. Okay. According

00:15:49.740 to some reports he did have a long-term partner okay that is the person who was sort of like

00:15:54.960 saying that his housekeeper had kidnapped him in the missing richard zimmons era yeah right so like

00:16:02.380 it's just all fraught it's all unreliable narrators it's all other people speaking for him

00:16:08.500 the thing that i feel really dead set on in this episode is richard zimmons speaking for richard

00:16:13.660 zimmons there's no chance that he's actually just an effeminate heterosexual guy is there

00:16:16.840 or is there there's a youtube video of outtakes and like pre-record from an interview he did at

00:16:23.920 one point in like the 80s or something where somebody said something about out of the closet

00:16:30.020 and he was like well i've been out of the closet for a long time no he hasn't and i was like you

00:16:34.640 have not yeah but also you sort of have like i see what he's saying right yeah yeah uh especially in

00:16:41.860 the 80s, people were not being like, well, actually, he hasn't addressed it. I personally

00:16:46.740 think Richard Simmons probably could have come out. I mean, everyone kind of knew already.

00:16:50.500 But also, it's like the psychology of this is so complex. I mean, this brings us to the next

00:16:56.360 point in the story, which is that he and his brother were raised Catholic. Oh, good. Add that

00:17:01.260 layer in there. He talks about thinking that it was weird that he and his brother went to Catholic

00:17:10.260 school. They dressed up and went to mass every week. Lenny was an altar boy, but neither of them

00:17:17.100 had ever been baptized and their parents never attended religious services or talked about

00:17:22.840 religion. Oh, so they're like culturally Catholic, but not like actually beliefs. They don't believe

00:17:27.180 stuff. So Richard sort of asked his parents and pressed about it and was like, why do we go to

00:17:32.760 mass, but you don't go to mass? Why do we go to a Catholic school, but you're not, we don't seem

00:17:38.120 to be catholic and his dad was like look it's a good school and it's three blocks away it's where

00:17:44.780 you go to school shut up about it we want to instill in you a weird sense of constant shame 0.98

00:17:50.000 yeah yeah we can tell how gay you are and we want you to feel bad about it forever we are 0.99

00:17:56.840 this is a subsidy to your future therapist in high school richard actually takes the plunge 0.97

00:18:02.220 and fully converts to catholicism he gets baptized he does the whole thing he at that point strongly 0.96

00:18:08.100 considers becoming a priest or even joining a monastery yeah that's like a thing for gay

00:18:13.680 people back then 100 in his memoir he says that he thought about becoming a priest because he

00:18:19.580 quote likes the outfits god richard you're not making this easy we're trying to be sensitive to

00:18:27.500 you and the way that you wanted to be discussed but it really seems like you want to tell the

00:18:33.200 audience something and you're not telling them it isn't until after he converts that he meets 0.98

00:18:41.080 some cousins who live far away and they start talking about these bat mitzvahs that they've 0.93

00:18:47.900 been having and richard is like what's a bat mitzvah and his cousins are like oh it's a jewish

00:18:55.460 thing because we're a jewish family wait what you're jewish wait really he's like secretly

00:19:01.420 jewish and he didn't know his dad was raised methodist and his mom was jewish oh and in

00:19:07.720 judaism if your mom is jewish you are jewish his parents never told them that he found out

00:19:14.320 through the grapevine that they were jewish the title of the chapter where he tells this story is

00:19:20.200 a catholic oi that's that is

00:19:25.340 i like this man i like this man

00:19:35.420 so this is sort of like the tone and tenor of life at home we're not talking about things

00:19:43.060 we're not showing affection we're not letting you in on what's happening

00:19:46.420 he talks about his parents not really showing affection even to each other man they really

00:19:51.460 did lean into the catholicism didn't they it's a really odd and sort of cold sounding household

00:19:57.040 to wit richard had asthma oh in his memoir he writes that he had asthma at a time when people

00:20:05.540 didn't really understand it right so we're talking about the 50s and some people didn't even fully

00:20:11.860 believe in it of course according to richard simmons one of those people was his dad nice

00:20:18.380 So he didn't get like an inhaler and stuff?

00:20:20.420 Quote, well, my father didn't believe in all this asthma medicine.

00:20:24.080 He secretly thought that my asthma would get better if I weren't such a brat.

00:20:28.320 Oh my God, it's always the same thing.

00:20:30.420 My dad also tended to be his own doctor.

00:20:33.220 No matter what was wrong with you,

00:20:34.920 he felt that it could be cured with one of the four remedies from his medicine cabinet.

00:20:38.660 Oh no, oh no.

00:20:41.560 Camphophanique, cod liver oil, calamine lotion, or mercurochrome.

00:20:47.440 oh no that's all you needed i thought he was gonna say the carnivore diet we'd really go

00:20:51.800 full circle you didn't you don't think we go full circle on mercurochrome so his relationship

00:20:59.440 with his dad sounded like rough in a really deep way initially i was gonna say strained

00:21:06.220 but like that would be an improvement yeah so i'm sending you another quote from his memoir

00:21:13.520 When I tried to one-up him, I was punished.

00:21:16.420 This happened a lot when my mother was away.

00:21:18.380 His method of punishment was perfect.

00:21:20.020 He just ignored you.

00:21:21.100 It was the punishment of silence.

00:21:22.880 Very effective for a child who craves attention.

00:21:25.420 You didn't exist.

00:21:26.440 He didn't do your laundry.

00:21:27.600 He didn't set a place at the table for you.

00:21:29.480 Milton doesn't live here anymore.

00:21:31.120 He had a short fuse, and if it went off, his words could be like daggers,

00:21:34.600 cloaked in the most incredible vocabulary.

00:21:36.920 His temper had style.

00:21:38.400 Rather than being afraid of him,

00:21:39.640 I wanted to see that temper in action and explore how I could twist it so I'd push just to get him

00:21:45.540 going oh man so he's just like trying to get any form of attention he can he's just trying to get

00:21:50.600 a reaction and his dad is like that not setting a place at the table for you is like chilling

00:21:57.680 brutal I also appreciate about this quote that he lifts up his response to it where he's like

00:22:04.220 oh yeah then I made it worse yeah then I would go in and be like what else can I get him to do

00:22:09.260 Right. Right. So there's another little vignette in the book about his father ignoring him

00:22:14.140 completely until Richard just starts singing show tunes at the table. Oh, man. Until his father

00:22:19.860 finally has to acknowledge him, even if it's just by being like, hey, stop it.

00:22:23.940 That makes so much of his public persona make sense. Yeah, because it's like he's just trying

00:22:29.080 to get your attention. Yeah. And he's trying to get you to look at him. He's trying to annoy his

00:22:33.140 way into your heart. Yeah. And his dad probably gave him his first ever Ellen face. One more

00:22:38.280 thing about his dad at one point in his childhood his mother was rushed to the hospital and it

00:22:44.120 turned out that she had an ulcer and they all go to the hospital together they're in the waiting

00:22:49.800 room and his dad immediately tears into him and says that richard is the reason that his mom is

00:22:57.080 sick oh god according to the memoir he screamed at richard quote it's not lenny it's you i'll

00:23:04.300 spell it out for you. M-I-L-T-O-N. No way. Jesus Christ. And then Richard turns it around on his 0.97

00:23:12.540 dad and is like, no, you're the one who aggravates her. She's stressed out because she has to work

00:23:17.500 all the time. Why don't you get a job? He says to his dad. Choke on a C-O-C-K, dad. So things were 1.00

00:23:25.380 tough with his dad. Good with his mom. He loved his mom so much. Really tough with his dad. And

00:23:31.560 they're tough at school too he's growing up in louisiana in the 50s and he is not a louisiana

00:23:39.700 in the 50s kind of guy he's more of a portland in the 2010s kind of guy more than 2024 he's got

00:23:47.480 a huge personality he's got big curly hair he's super theatrical he's fat at the time

00:23:56.440 he's left-handed and he talks in the memoir about trying to correct every single one of those

00:24:06.080 things he's trying to be a silent mask northpaw 100 he's looking for an extremely specific kind

00:24:12.560 of conversion therapy he is desperate to fit in and he is painfully aware that he fails to fit in

00:24:21.240 with his family and he also fails to fit in with his peers. Right. Right. Right. Those experiences

00:24:26.820 of difference are most acute for him around his fatness. That difference plays out at home. He

00:24:34.780 goes to the doctor when he's in grade school and the pediatrician gives him a lecture about weight

00:24:39.620 loss and puts him on a diet. The way that he describes that meeting felt so familiar to me

00:24:46.600 that you're like sitting in a doctor's office with this sort of authority figure that's not

00:24:51.420 just an authority over you but is also an authority to your parents yeah and they're

00:24:55.820 reporting to your parent that your body is a failure also on top of everything else he has 0.98

00:25:02.820 to be insecure about and he's getting shitted on for it's like oh throw throw fatness in there too 0.93

00:25:07.480 it's just like so much for one little guy to deal with and again this is all happening before he's 0.88

00:25:11.760 like 10 yeah yeah so at that doctor's visit the doctor hands him a photocopied piece of paper

00:25:17.700 that lays out a diet for him to follow oh god it's gonna be bad isn't it you want to hear the 0.92

00:25:23.920 diet do you have any guesses about what the diet is isn't gonna be some scarsdale bullshit where 0.97

00:25:27.640 it's like eat three blueberries in a bowl and then like salted ice cubes for lunch and then 0.96

00:25:33.960 man go jogging for dessert or something salted ice cubes is too light but three blueberries is

00:25:39.020 too heavy oh my god okay breakfast one slice of dry wheat toast a poached egg and quote a beverage

00:25:48.700 they don't really specify and that seems like a real that's kind of weird yeah yeah so milkshake

00:25:53.880 is fine right lunch is three ounces of tuna that's been packed in water drained and then dressed just

00:26:02.200 with lemon juice. Oh, that's like the rocks diet. Oh. And two slices of rye crisp in case that

00:26:09.180 wasn't dry enough for you. Your snack is one apple and your dinner is three ounces of lean

00:26:16.180 meat and one cup of dark green vegetables. And again, a beverage. Yeah, God, it's like a YouTube

00:26:21.960 challenge. It's like for dinner, eat six saltines and then afterwards fold a piece of paper more

00:26:27.540 than eight times so i looked at his diet and did a little rough estimate on the calories if your

00:26:33.700 beverages are water this adds up to 588 calories for the whole day it's like prisoner of war

00:26:41.420 rations at this point the minnesota starvation study had already happened and that was at

00:26:47.200 1570 yeah i don't like leaving it up to his parents to enforce this i guess which then

00:26:54.720 just contributes to the bad relationship with his dad well he also talks about sitting down to eat

00:26:59.920 with the whole rest of his family and they're eating all of their normal dinner oh god and

00:27:05.340 he's got like a little bowl of tuna with his sad little bowl of tuna yeah yeah so he starts the

00:27:12.300 diet food is terrible and he hates it so he starts quietly feeding it to their dog under the table

00:27:18.380 but that just means he's eating even less yes and he starts just skipping meals and the more weight

00:27:23.720 he loses the prouder his mom is of him so he instantly gets the message that no one cares

00:27:32.000 how you lose weight it's just that you lose weight i mean it's bad for you at any age but

00:27:37.100 it's like to be doing this this like important developmental time is like so dangerous and scary

00:27:40.940 i have i have nothing to say throughout this whole episode other than like that's bad

00:27:44.700 that poor guy i'm contributing nothing so that difference around his size shows up for him in a

00:27:52.460 big way at school he talks about arriving at school on the first day and being like everyone

00:27:58.280 here is thin and everyone here is staring at me oh yeah he also talks about a kind of constant

00:28:04.880 casual bullying of kids just being like hey fatso and that kind of thing he learns to deal with it

00:28:11.780 by leaning into the fat joke oh so when people are like hey fatso can you even make it to the

00:28:18.600 end of the block he'd like start wheezing like asthma style wheezing and then he'd be like

00:28:24.740 no i can't i'm not okay like he would like be like you're so right this is how out of shape 0.81

00:28:32.160 i am god so he's got the gay compensatory stuff and the fat compensatory stuff so he's like 0.73

00:28:37.080 establishing all these really harmful patterns it's kind of the same skill set that he developed 0.90

00:28:41.060 with his dad right which is just like you just go over the top with it you go when they go hard

00:28:47.980 you go harder i'm imagining like maintenance phase listeners who saw like oh they're doing

00:28:52.780 a richard simmons episode i know just sitting in their car staring into middle distance like

00:28:57.120 oh god i'm sad i'm so sad about something that happened like 60 years ago i told you

00:29:03.000 so at this point when this happens richard's friends are all girls yeah and they figure

00:29:08.080 that if he isn't fat this won't happen um which is like rookie mistake right so they all raid 0.98

00:29:15.760 their mom's medicine cabinets and bring in various diet pills oh no which was like fucking meth back 0.95

00:29:24.520 then right he doesn't name the pills but he does describe taking a bunch of different colors of

00:29:30.200 diet pills this was a thing in the 60s in particular there was a huge boom in quote-unquote

00:29:39.020 diet pills and they were sometimes called rainbow pills oh there was very little information and

00:29:46.000 research into their safety at this point but pill mills started to pop up just fully walk-in clinics

00:29:52.360 yeah where patients would come in and be prescribed a quote-unquote rainbow of pills

00:29:57.100 that were supposedly like bespoke just for them and the patients would get a consult and a

00:30:04.000 prescription, usually a few prescriptions to be filled at a compounding pharmacy. And the appeal,

00:30:11.580 the sort of selling point was that it was a medical solution and it was fully customized.

00:30:17.000 Peter Cohen, a professor at Harvard Medical School, told the Smithsonian, quote,

00:30:21.520 what they were really doing was selling stimulants combined with other medications

00:30:25.600 to counteract the side effects of the stimulants. So all they're doing is giving you amphetamines

00:30:33.480 and then things to make the amphetamines less amphetamine-y.

00:30:37.000 Also, did I, okay, maybe we'll keep this, maybe we won't.

00:30:39.080 Did I tell you I once took one of my dad's antidepressants

00:30:41.880 because I thought antidepressants were like happy pills?

00:30:44.640 I was in seventh grade.

00:30:45.880 Oh, no.

00:30:46.320 I was like, oh, if he takes them for depression,

00:30:48.240 then it'll make me extra happy.

00:30:49.500 So I took it, but then it turned out

00:30:50.960 they weren't antidepressants.

00:30:51.920 They were for his insomnia.

00:30:53.220 You just went to sleep?

00:30:54.400 It was like some nuclear level sleeping pill.

00:30:57.640 And it was the day, it was the last day of school

00:30:59.380 for seventh grade.

00:31:00.280 And we were all going to a roller skating rink.

00:31:01.940 oh no and you wanted to be extra i wanted to be extra happy and so i sat down to lace up my skates

00:31:08.520 and i was like i'm tired i'm gonna lie down and then i woke up at 3 15 when somebody was like

00:31:13.700 shaking me the whole thing the whole day baby you took some trazodone there's none question in my

00:31:20.660 mind i have no fucking idea what it was but i was also a tiny child and i like the dosage was also 0.86

00:31:25.760 deranged and then also there was speaking of bullying there was a kid who had been bullying 0.94

00:31:29.940 me all year and that was like his last chance to like beat me up and like as i was sleeping at some 0.99

00:31:34.980 point during the day he like shook me awake and he's like come out back bitch i'm gonna beat your 0.99

00:31:39.540 ass and i was i was too tired to deal with it i was like not right now man i'm too tired okay and 1.00

00:31:45.500 he just never fucked with me again i'm too sleepy for you to mess me up it's such a wild like keep 0.99

00:31:53.000 them on their toes what a fighting move so anyway could have been worse you could have been on 0.99

00:31:57.680 amphetamines well yeah i mean that would have been way better and also i would have kicked the 0.99

00:32:01.060 shit out of that guy so he keeps taking diet pills and he realizes that if he takes more pills he 0.90

00:32:05.880 loses more weight of course he only stops taking the pills after he has a very intense episode of 0.99

00:32:13.200 thinking and i quote that my heart would explode oh god so he backs off of the diet pills that

00:32:20.140 freaks him out and he's like no no no never mind so he finds out that one of his friends moms is

00:32:25.700 going to Weight Watchers and he begs her to take him with her. Oh, God. This is early high school

00:32:32.340 by this point. She agrees. And he's so happy that he runs home to tell his parents. And he writes

00:32:40.920 that when he told his parents, they were really deeply proud of him. Oh, more proud of him for

00:32:47.400 going to Weight Watchers than like most other things. Right. Which scans with the experiences

00:32:53.440 of a lot of fat kids yeah this is i mean some of these are parallels with your experience right

00:32:57.460 100 i was reading this and i was like i'm in this picture just like from a very young age this is 0.99

00:33:03.000 like the overwhelming like issue that people talk to you about and give you shit about pretty much 0.65

00:33:07.180 the only times he writes about his parents being proud of him are around weight loss oh god so he 0.94

00:33:11.800 describes going to this first weight watchers meeting with his friend's mom everyone lines up

00:33:17.180 and weighs in the group leader records everyone's weight and tells them how it changed from last

00:33:24.580 week to this week if your weight goes down you get a star pinned to your shirt if your weight

00:33:31.540 plateaus and stays the same you get a turtle which is like slow and steady whatever into your shirt 0.98

00:33:38.960 and if your weight increases michael you get a fucking pig yeah god i was like oh it's not gonna 0.99

00:33:44.820 be a pig is it oh yeah it was gonna be a pig or a cow or a hippo yeah then the group leader 1.00

00:33:50.360 announced everyone's weight loss or gain to the entire group and people clapped or did not clap 1.00

00:33:59.980 and his friend's mom when he goes to the first meeting gets the fucking pig pinned to her shirt 0.99

00:34:08.880 oh my god here is what he writes about that moment i held her hand she looked over at me 0.99

00:34:15.440 for a moment and then she said something that i'll never forget you better do something about

00:34:19.220 your weight now because it only gets worse later in life catch it now before it's too late i'll

00:34:24.300 never forget the look of shame on her face here was this happy lady and one trip to the scale and 1.00

00:34:29.680 20 minutes later she's crying her mascara is running down her cheeks and she has a pig on 0.91

00:34:34.300 her shoulder i knew from past experience that the system and reward and punishment probably wasn't

00:34:39.440 going to work for me oh god it's like such a sad lesson for like a little kid totally and i think

00:34:45.780 this is like where you start to see the birth of the richard simmons who stays up all night on the

00:34:51.880 phone with people who watch his videos or come to his classes right yeah this is where you see the

00:34:56.940 person who's just like i just don't want you to get wrecked by this right that's something i remember

00:35:01.960 very vividly from the podcast that he he has it like a deep well of empathy he seems to like

00:35:06.140 really care about other people but then he also has like these weird blind spots where he sort of

00:35:11.220 stops like it seems like he struggled to form relationships with people that weren't around

00:35:15.880 like kind of rescuing them or like being a support for them yeah he he describes himself

00:35:21.060 repeatedly in adulthood as someone who does not have friends right so he's just sort of doing this

00:35:26.900 kind of like deep emotional support work right but he doesn't feel like a reciprocal relationship

00:35:35.140 he doesn't feel you know that's how i took that and then you also think about this poor kid 0.59

00:35:39.440 carrying around the fact that he's gay at the same time right it's like okay i have this fat 0.89

00:35:43.940 thing that is like the number one thing that everybody is shitty to me about and then i have 0.98

00:35:48.140 this big fucking secret that i'm carrying around or at least this feeling i have that i can't put 0.89

00:35:52.540 words to even if he hadn't sort of identified it in himself yet and he's left-handed and he's 0.99

00:35:57.240 inferior so all of this all of the crash diets the diet pills the doctor's visits the weight

00:36:04.080 watchers all of this happens while he is a child or a teenager he has not even gone off to college

00:36:11.280 yet and he's already been through the ringer right so when it comes time for him to leave

00:36:16.820 home he is stoked yeah he started at the university of louisiana at lafayette and then he transferred

00:36:25.800 to florida state okay where he graduated interestingly enough with an art degree

00:36:30.980 we could have had a richard simmons bob ross that's very fun for me to think about maybe

00:36:35.740 there's a happy little tank top maybe there's a happy little tank top right here

00:36:38.500 he wanted to be a painter and he studied abroad in italy okay and he loved it oh he is there

00:36:51.640 to make his dreams to be an artist come true but things take a very different turn when he's sitting

00:37:00.660 at a cafe after class one day oh no all right there you go he says i noticed a table of men

00:37:07.060 across the way, staring at me. I just assumed they must be admiring my gorgeous curly hair or

00:37:12.420 my new Paisley Gucci knockoff overalls. Overalls? Okay. He's already Richard. One of the men came

00:37:21.100 over and introduced himself, asking me if I knew Federico Fellini, the Italian director. I said I

00:37:26.620 didn't know him, but I knew who he was. Well, the gentleman who introduced himself was the casting

00:37:31.220 director for the movie Satyricon, and Fellini wanted me for a small role. And he wanted me

00:37:36.800 because I was fat, but in Italian, it sounded so much nicer. So Richard Simmons appears briefly

00:37:43.980 in Fellini's satiricon. Wait, this actually went through? This actually happened? It is a blink

00:37:50.400 and you'll miss it kind of appearance. No way. He is there. Dude, in his little overalls?

00:37:56.780 No, but he is a little fat guy. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. YouTube has it. YouTube has it. 0.89

00:38:01.160 YouTube has it. Richard Simmons in Fellini's satiricon, exclamation point, exclamation point,

00:38:05.960 Exclamation point.

00:38:06.660 Send me the clip.

00:38:07.400 Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on.

00:38:08.640 Okay, sending it to you.

00:38:10.560 This is fun.

00:38:18.220 That is Richard Simmons.

00:38:20.020 I would not in a million years have recognized that as him.

00:38:23.480 Full beard. 0.99

00:38:25.240 Definitely like a fat dude. 0.97

00:38:27.060 He looks like Jack Black. 0.92

00:38:28.100 He looks like a young Belushi.

00:38:30.240 Yes.

00:38:30.600 Dude, one of the comments is, my God, the amount of people who think that's Richard

00:38:35.260 simmons is disturbing according to his memoir it is him i don't know somebody commenting without

00:38:39.920 full context and information i don't know i don't know the youtube comment section that i know in a

00:38:45.780 youtube comment so the satiricon role leads to a bunch more acting work in italy what mostly in

00:38:56.900 commercials really in one he played a a bunch of grapes for an italian fruit of the loom commercial

00:39:04.140 nice okay in another he played a dancing meatball that sings a jingle god now i'm imagining a life

00:39:11.400 for richard simmons where he just became a successful italian actor just only did commercials

00:39:16.760 yeah just like a fat happy guy in italy totally he did the skinny sad guy in america version of

00:39:23.020 like he did make his money off of commercials there's no question yeah this all leads to him

00:39:27.320 becoming a little local celebrity in florence he's living there he's 20 years old he's supporting

00:39:33.960 himself through acting he's going to school he's loving his life this whole chapter of his life

00:39:41.280 makes me so happy for him dude i know it's like his eat pray love era and i just love that he

00:39:46.040 gets this sort of era of just being appreciated as he is and celebrated as he is in his true form

00:39:54.180 as a dancing meatball you know you're like yeah stay there richard freeze frame keep richard the

00:40:01.640 happy meatball so good this is what we want for you richard so one day he borrows his friend's

00:40:06.460 car to go grocery shopping his friend has a little tiny fiat and once again fat lady in a little car

00:40:11.860 loves fat dude in a little car he goes grocery shopping he uses his friend's car when he comes

00:40:20.300 out of the market to go to the car there is a note on the windshield this is a note that he

00:40:27.320 cites throughout the rest of his career as like the turning point when he was like i finally have

00:40:32.720 to do something about my weight oh no the note says according to his memoir richard you're very

00:40:40.420 funny but fat people die young please don't die dude leave the happy meatball alone totally let 0.71

00:40:48.340 him be a happy little meatball god that's awful so then like this act of bullying becomes like 0.77

00:40:53.380 this crucial part of his origin story well and he goes on to say in later interviews like i thought

00:40:58.880 people just didn't like me because i was fat i didn't realize i was going to die because i was

00:41:02.860 fat right so one of his big messages later on was like you gotta tell fat people they're gonna die

00:41:08.940 god that's so sad so he goes on this real emotional roller coaster on this one like

00:41:13.980 who wrote the note it's somebody who clearly knows or recognizes him it wasn't signed so he

00:41:19.800 doesn't know who it was. He gets way up in his head about like which one of his friends probably

00:41:25.800 wrote it. Say it to my face, motherfucker. Totally. So he writes about how he ultimately 1.00

00:41:32.780 sort of processed all of this. And this is how he dealt with the feedback from that note.

00:41:39.100 He says, I knew I didn't want to die. So who or what was the enemy? I knew the answer. Food.

00:41:45.520 I knew what I had to do.

00:41:46.780 I had to stop eating.

00:41:48.240 That was it, plain and simple.

00:41:49.860 And that's what I did.

00:41:51.020 I stayed very busy, I drank water, I walked everywhere, and the weight began to come off.

00:41:55.160 And I do mean the weight began to come off.

00:41:57.540 Almost like a sugar rush, I began to feel a sort of heady euphoria.

00:42:01.360 It became a game.

00:42:02.480 Every day, I found new ways to avoid eating.

00:42:06.300 If I were going to a party or someone's house, I'd fill up with water,

00:42:10.520 quickly drinking seven or eight glasses before I went.

00:42:13.300 Every day, I'd roll the dice. 0.69

00:42:14.720 how many days could i do this dude this sucks yeah and he's like now this is a strategy for 0.99

00:42:22.620 my health yeah why can't people just be fat and you being fucking nice to them good enough for 0.99

00:42:26.960 felini yeah i know jesus christ fat activist king frederico felini god so that's exactly what he 0.98

00:42:38.540 does he stops eating and in two and a half months he loses over a hundred pounds no fucking way that 0.75

00:42:47.120 fast michael this is how richard simmons quote unquote loses the weight dude he's just straight 0.80

00:42:55.620 up wild unchecked happily embraced anorexia i hope he's like lying or exaggerating about that i mean

00:43:05.060 that's like so dangerous he talks about his nails breaking off because they're so brittle

00:43:10.220 he talks about his skin thinning out and turning gray oh god he talks about finding clumps of hair

00:43:19.600 on his pillow most mornings and one day he's out running errands and he starts feeling nauseated

00:43:26.780 and dizzy and the next thing he knows he wakes up in a hospital and he's talking to the nurses

00:43:33.340 about starving himself god the nurses start refeeding him and they explain to him that this

00:43:40.040 is not the way to lose weight yeah he starts to slowly but surely come back a little bit from his

00:43:45.900 disordered eating but he's what 12 step folks or aa folks might call a dry drunk right he's not

00:43:52.740 in therapy he's not at peace with his body he doesn't have a neutral much less a positive

00:43:59.160 relationship with food he's just like i'm eating because i'm supposed to eat leave me alone and

00:44:04.620 probably all kinds of like still like guilt and shame about how much he's eating and when he's

00:44:07.600 eating stuff like that nothing is resolved he's just managing to kind of bear down and knuckle

00:44:14.200 through so he's just starting to come back from his eating disorder stuff and he gets a draft notice

00:44:22.120 for vietnam oh god i forgot this was taking place in like his history he's told to report

00:44:28.880 to a center in new york city for duty he shows up but he is still very early in refeeding from

00:44:37.680 his eating disorder god so he's still losing hair he still looks malnourished and he's given a

00:44:44.940 deferral and doesn't serve. Right. Okay. And he decides from there to move to Los Angeles

00:44:52.360 and start working in restaurants. Is he attempting to become an actor at this point? Is that why he

00:44:57.660 goes to LA? He doesn't really say why he goes to LA. It's odd. I sort of thought, oh, maybe he's

00:45:03.740 going to pursue acting out there. No, no. He just starts working in restaurants. Okay. His longest

00:45:08.300 stint is in a restaurant called derrick's which was a very cnb scene restaurant and its celebrity

00:45:16.860 guests are like peak 70s he was like the people who ate at derrick's were deon warwick tom jones

00:45:26.440 johnny carson and friend of the show ed mcmahon aubrey we don't have time to tell all the youths

00:45:33.800 who all these people are we now take an hour-long detour to describe the youths already know who

00:45:40.580 Dionne Warwick is from her excellent twitter career oh that's true actually that is right

00:45:44.960 yes and Ed McMahon our listeners will know from a previous episode scroll back our single least

00:45:53.820 popular episode you love bringing that up my number one favorite I love it so much it's your

00:46:00.120 worm wars as you can imagine richard simmons is the maitre d and he is built for front of house

00:46:06.140 work yeah he's an entj no this is we know this from the completely real categorization we now

00:46:12.740 can diagnose him with one of the 16 people oh so like you he's an extrovert all right all right

00:46:17.940 all right all right all right how dare you never bring that up again so he finds a way to supplement

00:46:23.420 his income he makes jewelry okay and he models it at the restaurant and then people are like oh my

00:46:31.100 god your jewelry where'd you get it and he'd be like i made it do you want some and would like

00:46:35.760 pull jewelry out of his pocket this is like early instagram this like is he's like a little

00:46:40.220 influencer he's totally an influencer but wait do you want to know what do you imagine let's just

00:46:46.140 start here what do you imagine the richard simmons jewelry looks like i don't want to be mean i don't 0.96

00:46:51.440 the theme of his jewelry is anatomy oh what oh is it just like dicks no no not that kind of 0.97

00:47:02.440 boobs boobs kidney earrings what wait liver brooches wait spleen hat pins are you sure 0.99

00:47:12.320 you're not misreading are you having a stroke is this real a very special 24 carat gold uterus 0.97

00:47:19.320 with opal ovaries some of those you wouldn't even know that it's the the part of the body the the

00:47:24.580 kidney necklace would just look like a bean i would well famously the tiffany design the classic

00:47:30.000 tiffany design is just a little gold bean so like you know maybe it looks like knock off tiffany

00:47:34.620 a uterus i feel like i would recognize because it has little ears anyway i can't express to you how

00:47:41.120 much i would wear like pancreas earrings we have so many richards like it's like the the happy

00:47:47.580 meatball richard we want the best for the artist richard the kidney gold maker richard 24 carat

00:47:55.220 gold uterus yeah richard one gallbladder please we want the best for all of these people and we

00:48:01.580 got this totally different richard so while he's working in restaurants selling his wares

00:48:06.460 he picks up some more extremely maladaptive weight loss methods right he's now working 0.83

00:48:12.960 in restaurants he is surrounded by food and also he's in fucking la where like everybody has 0.51

00:48:18.000 disordered eating so he's like i'm sure he's getting all kinds of tips a server at one restaurant 0.61

00:48:23.180 where he works gives him a tutorial on how to purge oh god another co-worker introduces him to

00:48:29.920 abusing laxatives for weight loss and he was like i like that they tasted like chocolate oh my god

00:48:34.840 at one point he notices some regulars are all at the restaurant all the time but they're rarely

00:48:39.900 eating and they're very thin and they spend a lot of time in the bathroom and they come back

00:48:45.140 having powdered their noses he's like so one day i just marched into that bathroom right behind them

00:48:51.040 and he sees powder on the sink and he's like what is this richard and you're like you live in la

00:48:58.040 and you work in the restaurant industry with famous people in the 70s you know cocaine i have

00:49:03.400 no experience with la or cocaine but i do assume that it was basically a snow globe at that time

00:49:08.480 anyway that is a point at which he's like i actually don't think i'm gonna do cocaine to

00:49:14.620 lose weight good call richard you should do cocaine because it makes you more fun to be around

00:49:17.880 you should do it for the good reasons while he's living in la he starts experimenting with exercise

00:49:23.560 which is sort of a burgeoning leisure activity in la at this point all right like the industry

00:49:30.160 is forming yeah yeah this is the 70s we're not even into the 80s so this is like exercises for

00:49:37.620 like jack la lane right and like strong men and that kind of thing and we're starting to move

00:49:44.220 into like oh what if it's something that people do as part of their daily lives yeah so he tries

00:49:50.000 out bikram yoga and he's like not for me yeah that does seem a little low energy for richard

00:49:55.620 and then one day a friend recommends exercise classes at a place called body by gilda okay

00:50:02.640 Body by Gilda was a studio run by Gilda Marks. I would say based on what I've read that Gilda

00:50:09.080 Marks is sort of like the exercise equivalent of that saying about the Velvet Underground. Like

00:50:15.600 not everybody listened, but everybody who did started a band. Right. So Body by Gilda is where

00:50:21.460 Jane Fonda started working out. Okay. Regular attendees also included Bette Midler and Barbara

00:50:29.140 Streisand. Nice. So Richard goes to Gilda's class in LA and he talks about sort of all of the

00:50:36.340 feelings of being a fat kid and learning that physical activity is a place where you get

00:50:41.700 ridiculed or you get excluded or you get whatever. And he's like, this is the first time I didn't

00:50:48.680 feel any of that. And I got to be exactly as exuberant as I wanted to be. I got to be exactly

00:50:56.000 who i was someone was there playing the piano and they were playing like crowd pleaser kind of songs 1.00

00:51:03.220 gilda is this kind of glamorous class leader she always has her nails done for her gym class and 1.00

00:51:11.360 her hair is done she has like a signature red lip that she wears to the where i'm just like 1.00

00:51:17.240 holy hell full face of makeup yeah jim look at you that doesn't like she looks like a salvador

00:51:23.500 dolly painting by the end but i'm sure she was moving at work it's exercise but it's mostly

00:51:29.820 about having fun he feels like it can really cut loose and be his whole self with his whole energy

00:51:35.960 level and he leaves feeling strong feeling amped and with this sense that he really found the place

00:51:44.320 for him so much so that he pre-pays for a whole series of 10 classes he's like okay sign me up

00:51:52.100 he is also the only person in the class who's not a woman. That night he goes to work at Derek's at

00:51:59.440 the restaurant and Gilda and her husband walk in the door of the restaurant. And he thinks that

00:52:07.660 they're there to have dinner. He's really excited to see her. And what she's actually there to do

00:52:13.140 is give him a refund. What? And to tell him that he can't come back. What? And that the women in

00:52:20.160 the class weren't comfortable with having a man in the class and he's straightforwardly in the

00:52:25.600 memoir is like i don't believe her so what do you think it was i think probably like if you're not

00:52:31.720 accustomed if you didn't sign on specifically for richard simmons level of energy yeah i could

00:52:38.480 understand feeling like this is more than i'm up for i'm just like marveling at how like hurtful

00:52:44.220 that must have been because like you finally find a place that you're comfortable and you're like oh

00:52:47.980 i found my people and then an hour later they're like no yeah so this one he describes this one as

00:52:54.920 hurting him in more depth and detail than any of the other previous hurts in this book yeah it must

00:53:02.240 be yeah once again he's getting the message that he's not wanted yeah yeah so next in the book he

00:53:09.180 tells this story of being out for dinner and running into a customer of his from derrick's

00:53:16.840 from the restaurant like a lot of his customers this dude is wealthy as hell and they start

00:53:23.800 talking and richard is like i think it's time for me to move on from restaurants and this customer

00:53:29.680 says well what do you want to do and richard says i actually want to start my own gym so that's what

00:53:35.640 did it he just like gets kicked out of one he's like i'm starting one he went to one exercise

00:53:39.960 class he loved it and he was like oh you're gonna kick me out how about i start my own gym i need

00:53:46.260 to know how many public figures launch their careers out of pure spite it has to be more than

00:53:51.260 50 according to richard simmons in this memoir this strains credulity to me okay the customer

00:53:58.020 at that dinner is like what a great idea i'll finance it yeah huh like it occurs to him and

00:54:06.280 he has a you know a financing partner right just immediately it's there's this weird sort of way

00:54:14.440 of storytelling that richard simmons has like he just keeps stumbling into major career victories

00:54:21.260 at one point he's like i never wanted to write a book and then i sat on a plane and i was sitting

00:54:25.480 next to the vp of random house i'm like no you weren't also you wonder how much he was exploring

00:54:30.660 the gay scene in la at this time for sure like it could have been somebody he knew from the

00:54:34.100 restaurant it could have been someone he was dating it could have been like as soon as you

00:54:37.360 leave out this huge part of your identity there's probably entire like entire people that you know

00:54:42.320 that are not going to make it in your book and entire relationships and and subplots that just

00:54:46.380 aren't going to be in there yeah i will say i did find a clip of an interview where he's being

00:54:52.500 interviewed by hewell hauser uh california listeners will be familiar with no idea hewell

00:54:57.480 hauser it's like deon warwick to our young listeners for the entire interview richard

00:55:02.380 simmons is staring at hewell hauser's chest and then he goes sorry there's a chubby little

00:55:10.700 alligator on your shirt and then later he's like do you want to arm wrestle me oh my god 0.80

00:55:15.360 simmons is working overtime to get laid and it's in an interview for cnn control your meatballs

00:55:24.020 richard it's it made me it made me so happy i was gonna show it i was gonna play it on the show and

00:55:31.140 then i was like do you know who huelhauser is and you were like i've never heard that name in my life

00:55:34.880 and i was like well then it's not fun this is what i would be like if i was ever in the room

00:55:38.660 with jeremy irons had to be looking at his neck veins oh you got a jeremy irons thing specifically

00:55:43.800 jeremy irons from diehard with a vengeance where he's all ropey and mean so regardless of the

00:55:50.320 origins that is when richard simmons opens his first exercise studio this is the gym that is

00:55:58.060 later known as slimmons okay it's pretty good so he opens his gym and he decides that it's going to

00:56:07.400 be a gym that takes all comers you know okay and it really takes off with two demographics in

00:56:13.740 particular gay men and fat women just like this show just like our podcast we are the richard 0.98

00:56:21.600 simmons demographic we cannot talk shit we cannot come for richard simmons lest someone come for us 0.98

00:56:26.580 a number of gay men are into nautilus gyms at this point but those are described at the time 0.97

00:56:31.480 as being kind of like nightclubs and sort of like hookup spaces like cruisy yeah yeah so it's not

00:56:37.660 uh everyone is welcome and you're here to exercise space my friend's gym in london which is like

00:56:43.280 around soho has like a women's changing room a men's changing room and another men's changing 0.99

00:56:49.680 room just like everyone knows that's like the gay sex changing room even though there's like 0.97

00:56:54.900 not a sign and the women's room is just like a tumbleweed it's just storage they put keep like 0.99

00:56:59.880 the paper towels in there there's no one's ever been in there there are these nautilus gyms that

00:57:05.440 are kind of like nightclubs there are bodybuilding gyms but if you're not a bodybuilder you're gonna

00:57:09.960 feel so weird there oh right people use a particular phrase a lot when talking about

00:57:15.220 the early years of slimmons and that phrase is quote you don't have to look like you already go

00:57:21.240 to the gym to belong there oh that's nice right yeah so he starts leading exercise classes at this

00:57:27.760 gym and he starts getting press because he is richard simmons and i i left this out the gym

00:57:34.340 despite being like come one come all outsiders hello the gym is in beverly hills okay and

00:57:44.480 the classes were expensive in late 70s dollars it was a hundred dollars for 10 classes oh that's

00:57:55.120 six hundred and fifty dollars in today's dollars. So that's sixty five bucks a class.

00:57:59.400 Yep. Damn. He also starts getting press just for being in L.A. and being Richard Simmons. 1.00

00:58:09.420 Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. There are a bunch of like little profiles of him that start to pop

00:58:14.100 up. There's an L.A. Times one where they call him, quote, a kind of freaked out Jack LaLanne,

00:58:20.140 which Jack LaLanne did not love. Yeah, I'll bet. Yeah.

00:58:25.120 Just say the gay version of me. 0.94

00:58:26.680 This is taking forever. 0.85

00:58:27.400 The gym takes off and it becomes a chain.

00:58:31.860 At this point, the gym is not yet called Slimmons.

00:58:37.460 Also, nowhere in the write-ups, I'm like,

00:58:40.300 everybody was asleep at the wheel for these obituaries of him

00:58:44.220 because no one mentioned that the original name of his gym

00:58:46.720 was the Anatomy Asylum.

00:58:49.900 What? 1.00

00:58:52.000 That's garbage. 0.99

00:58:53.100 So we're going to watch an ad for the Anatomy Asylum that I found on YouTube. 0.98

00:59:00.400 The man who brought us I'm a Catholic oi also did.

00:59:04.840 A Catholic oi.

00:59:06.920 Yeah. 1.00

00:59:07.720 The Anatomy Asylum is so bad.

00:59:10.380 Wait until you hear the slogan.

00:59:12.320 It gets better slash worse.

00:59:14.540 Oh, God.

00:59:15.040 Okay.

00:59:16.820 Hi, I'm Richard Simmons.

00:59:18.260 My first Anatomy Asylum in Los Angeles was the start of something great.

00:59:21.500 A great national network of 72 clubs in 13 cities, including yours, where people like you can lose weight, look good, and feel great.

00:59:28.700 Now, we've got the music, the instructors, and the facilities right here to help you get yourself back in shape.

00:59:33.480 Join me and over 100,000 members all over the country.

00:59:37.100 Isn't it time you were committed to the Anatomy Asylum?

00:59:39.920 Join the Anatomy Asylum now and get two people for the price of one or 50% off the enrollment fee of a VIP.

00:59:44.640 Okay, he saved it. He saved it.

00:59:46.140 Do you see what I did? I'm both better and worse.

00:59:51.500 so we are at the beginnings of the richard simmons fitness empire it's happening and

00:59:59.780 next time we're gonna watch the empire sort of unfold in front of him and we're gonna see what

01:00:07.920 richard simmons does when uh he stops being sort of the target of the messages and starts being

01:00:15.140 the deliverer of the messages right okay we start seeing what he decides to do with the platform

01:00:21.100 that he builds. And it's really interesting. So what was your takeaway from this section of the

01:00:26.180 book? How did it change the way that you think about Richard Simmons? I felt honestly a little

01:00:29.840 bit embarrassed that someone who had been such a constant presence in my life had been given so

01:00:36.400 little thought by me, but also just kind of by the culture at large. It made me sad that I had

01:00:42.420 to go back and read this book from 25 years ago right to hear from anyone anywhere that he actually

01:00:51.440 had a really rough time growing up and that he had different dreams than this and that he thought he

01:00:58.520 was going to be a priest and then maybe an actor and then maybe a painter right like all of this

01:01:03.540 was new information to me all of it makes sense right and all of it makes me wish that we had

01:01:10.080 been better to him when he was around to experience us being better to him. I mean I do think next

01:01:14.680 time we're confronted with a public figure like this who's sort of happy-go-lucky almost to a

01:01:21.080 fault I think we should immediately ask ourselves shouldn't you be a happy little meatball

01:01:25.880 meatballing around somewhere in Italy? 0.98

01:01:40.080 Thank you.

Maintenance Phase - October 25, 2024

Growing Up Richard Simmons

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