Maintenance Phase - November 21, 2024


Richard Simmons Isn't Missing

Growing Up Richard Simmons BONUS： What's New With RFK Jr.？

Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 6 minutes

Words per minute

178.77

Word count

11,801

Sentence count

334

Harmful content

Misogyny

5

sentences flagged

Toxicity

77

sentences flagged

Hate speech

62

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 man i'll tell you what all i ever want to drink when we're recording is like fizzy things and
00:00:15.600 it's the worst idea i know because you have fizz in the background you have the burps
00:00:20.020 yeah you get just lovely little gurgles to join us on the podcast the gurgle cut
00:00:26.300 we're releasing the gurgle cut i think i mean i think maybe i'll go literal welcome to maintenance
00:00:30.960 phase the podcast that will make you cry slightly less in this episode than the previous episode 0.92
00:00:37.900 this is what i was promised this is why i'm here you're really selling it i'm fucking i'm leaving 0.92
00:00:42.760 if you make me cry but i think look listen i think the main arc of this episode is richard 0.96
00:00:49.560 simmons rise to stardom and then decision to disengage from stardom i'm michael hobbs i'm
00:00:55.860 oh my god we haven't said our name we haven't forgot again you have to say your thing if you'd
00:01:01.540 like to support the show you can do that at patreon.com slash maintenance phase or you can
00:01:05.980 subscribe through apple podcast or spotify it's the same audio same stuff michael we're talking
00:01:13.040 about richard simmons again can you give us like a like a brief nutshell overview yes of sort of
00:01:20.900 what we learned last time. Grew up Louisiana. He talks a lot about being bullied for being fat
00:01:27.780 by his father and also other kids. Then he moves to Italy, becomes a happy little meatball,
00:01:35.240 ends up moving back to LA and essentially having like a very severe eating disorder to lose 100
00:01:40.820 pounds and then discovers a group exercise and opens a gym and then a chain of gyms.
00:01:48.040 Yeah, because his gym is based in Beverly Hills and because he is such a theatrical dude, it is not long until the media takes note.
00:02:00.820 Richard and Anatomy Asylum are ultimately featured for the first time on TV on a show called Real People.
00:02:08.760 Are you ready to watch a clip?
00:02:10.100 Yeah, yeah, let's do it.
00:02:11.520 What was it that compelled you to lose all that weight?
00:02:15.540 I had a friend who had a friend who died from obesity from just being fat.
00:02:22.960 And that's when I started going to autopsies, like, you know, looking at people's hearts and being able to take this picture into the classroom and go,
00:02:31.780 Do you see this heart? This heart is covered with cookies and pies and grease.
00:02:38.740 And your heart may look like this, and you never know when it's going to stop beating.
00:02:43.140 Weren't you afraid that if you lost weight, you couldn't get work as an actor if you were thin?
00:02:48.320 Every fat person has the fear that they will change in some way,
00:02:52.620 mentally, physically, spiritually, and sexually, if that weight loss goes.
00:02:57.020 I tried every diet in the whole world.
00:02:59.340 I had the jaws wired. I tried the pills. I tried the shots.
00:03:03.380 And finally, I basically starved.
00:03:05.880 I lost 123 pounds in two and a half months.
00:03:09.280 My hair fell off. The eyes drooped. The chin drooped.
00:03:12.920 If you don't exercise while you're losing the weight, you will end up to look like a very thin glad bag.
00:03:19.400 I had to go to a plastic surgeon.
00:03:21.580 Chin had to go up, eyes had to be done, nose fixed, 900 hair transplants.
00:03:25.400 I mean, you're looking at a four-door Cadillac paid for when you look at this face.
00:03:29.760 What's to prevent other people from looking at you and saying, hey, Richard did it, why can't I do it?
00:03:34.480 Because they shouldn't make the same anguish mistake that I made because I almost died.
00:03:39.900 I didn't know he had that much plastic surgery.
00:03:42.260 yeah he had quite a bit of i assume there was like some loose skin
00:03:45.580 removal stuff to do but like yeah he he was very open about having had a lot of work done he also
00:03:52.200 has this weird thing of like i lost weight the wrong way so that's why i you know had this kind
00:03:56.820 of drooping face but my understanding is that like you have that no matter what it's like you
00:04:00.780 if you lose weight you just have extra skin on your face yes absolutely it's the same thing as
00:04:05.580 like when people are like ozempic face and you're like yeah that's just people losing weight and
00:04:10.060 you got less fat everywhere people just lose weight yeah and then your skin hangs a little
00:04:14.120 lower and there you go i feel like it it makes me kind of like respect the message a little bit less
00:04:19.200 if he's promising people you know that they can look like richard simmons after losing so much
00:04:23.600 weight when he's presumably spent thousands of dollars on a bunch of plastic surgery this is
00:04:28.020 some of the sort of selective stuff that people listen to with richard simmons yeah he was very
00:04:33.060 consistent about saying that he starved himself and that that was a bad idea yeah a lot of people
00:04:38.200 missed that message he was pretty consistent about talking about having work done a lot of
00:04:42.540 people chose not to pay attention to that and he was also pretty consistent as you see in this clip
00:04:48.040 with really haranguing fat people yeah about being to blame for their own deaths basically right yeah
00:04:57.740 in a people magazine profile from the time called former fatty richard simmons is the grand duke of
00:05:08.040 diet and the clown prince of fitness that's not even what it's exactly right they write quote
00:05:16.880 off camera simmons himself has even been known to accost strangers caught in the act of over
00:05:23.600 indulging i'll see an overweight woman eating a butterscotch sundae he says and i'll sit at her
00:05:28.980 table and say what is this for me this is not a job it's a mission he's like bullying worked for
00:05:35.700 me so i have to bully people but it's like richard it doesn't sound like it actually worked
00:05:39.320 for you yeah totally and i will say he doesn't really talk a ton in interviews about his
00:05:44.920 relationship with food yeah but when you get little glimpses of it it's very clearly not
00:05:51.260 an easy relationship oh yeah there's one men's health interview where he lists off just like
00:05:56.740 dozens of foods that he can't have in his house oh wow okay let yourself have a potato chip once
00:06:02.960 in a while my guy so he probably just has like a low grade eating disorder for like essentially
00:06:07.340 the rest of his life it's like how he keeps the weight off well and now not only is it his
00:06:12.200 perception of his own health and his perception of his own social value and other people's 0.97
00:06:16.760 perceptions of those things too it's also his fucking job yeah yeah yeah he can't ever be 0.98
00:06:21.680 seen to gain any weight i think the thing that i took home from this clip when i first saw it 0.98
00:06:25.340 I was like, holy hell, his message was so much gnarlier and more like tough talk than I remembered.
00:06:35.320 You know, it's a scared straight stuff.
00:06:37.320 I think people tend to think of him as the antidote to like toxic weight loss messages.
00:06:43.180 And I think that's the part that people listen to the loudest.
00:06:46.420 Yeah.
00:06:46.840 But he had plenty of extremely judgmental messages in there because that is how he felt about himself.
00:06:53.880 so is this just a show that's just like here's a random guy it's the tv show equivalent of get a
00:06:59.840 load of this guy like the guy who got calf implants on true life on mtv that i still remember for some
00:07:04.840 reason oh boy remember that one no what i think about that all the time and here you said you
00:07:10.360 didn't get tv references nice try that's all i did as a kid was go over to friend's house who
00:07:14.900 had cable and watch mtv go away i'm watching mtv were your parents like a we refused to have cable
00:07:20.620 house we were a cheapskate house and cable was like 32 a month that's where you get it
00:07:25.940 it is aubrey yes it's a genetic trait so unsurprisingly after his appearance on real
00:07:36.120 people richard is a huge hit and the next thing he did michael was that he landed a recurring role
00:07:44.740 as an aerobics instructor on General Hospital.
00:07:50.500 Oh, here come the weird references to things the youths will not understand.
00:07:54.000 Yeah, General Hospital is an extremely long-running American soap opera,
00:08:00.660 and soap operas, I would say, are like telenovelas that never end.
00:08:06.720 We have to give it to people in Mr. Beast.
00:08:08.400 Imagine Mr. Beast, but there's a script that he talks,
00:08:11.940 and there's 50 Mr. Beasts, and they work in a hospital.
00:08:14.140 that's how young people will understand imagine you unwrap your shredded cheese and there's a big
00:08:18.660 pile of blue the way that he talks about getting the role is another one of these sort of i don't
00:08:24.060 know richard kind of yeah ingenue stories where he's like i was on a plane to las vegas and i got
00:08:31.060 into my seat and i was sitting next to a professional looking brunette in a three-piece
00:08:36.300 suit who asks him aren't you that guy who jumps around on television okay and he says yes i
00:08:44.100 I guess I am. And she says, you're very funny. I've never seen anyone like you on TV. And he
00:08:48.460 says, well, that's because there isn't anyone on TV like me. Nice. Like I was like, I don't think
00:08:53.880 this exchange happened at all in this way. Yeah, no. And I don't think you stumbled into a role
00:09:00.080 on general hospital. She, this professional looking brunette then says, Hey, I'm in casting 1.00
00:09:05.980 for general hospital. And I'd like to write a role for you on the show. And he's like,
00:09:11.640 i turned her down oh no you didn't i feel like a theme in celebrity memoirs is people write out
00:09:18.440 their ambition oftentimes yep it sounds like he probably wanted to get on tv he got a little taste
00:09:23.380 of celebrity he liked it and he's like okay what other opportunities are there and he probably
00:09:27.160 went out of his way to try to make these opportunities happen there's nothing wrong
00:09:30.440 with that but people want to make it seem as if it's like i'm so special that people couldn't help
00:09:35.480 but notice. I think he had gotten a taste not only of sort of being on camera, but of the kind
00:09:42.260 of adulation that he had absolutely never gotten in his life before. Right. Yeah. Everything up
00:09:48.700 until now has been mostly people rejecting him. Right. And then he gets this thing where people
00:09:55.380 not only accept him, they adore him. Right. Right. He talks during this era about how there were whole
00:10:01.960 bags of fan mail just for him. Oh, wow. This is around the time that he starts his pretty
00:10:08.120 legendary relationships with his fans. In his memoir, he writes that he usually makes 40 to
00:10:15.760 50 phone calls a day. Oh my God. Even when he's on the road and on a really busy day, he'd go up to
00:10:23.240 100 phone calls. This is my bad place. Hellscape. This would kill me. Hellscape. So Richard
00:10:31.680 lands this role on general hospital it goes really well he's really loved on the show he calls his
00:10:39.700 dad to tell him he's on general hospital yeah and his dad's response is basically why don't you have 0.98
00:10:48.700 your own show what the fuck that's such garbage so from there richard went on to host his own 0.95
00:10:58.540 daytime talk show the richard simmons show wait really like immediately yeah he started general 0.99
00:11:03.700 hospital in 79 and he uh started the richard simmons show in 1980 oh wow okay we're gonna
00:11:11.020 watch the intro which will give you a taste good good good good good i sent you the link intro
00:11:18.840 okay the richard simmons show it's him doing fitness great transitions powerpoint transition
00:11:28.520 okay there's like a preacher skit okay fitness in top hats vaudeville fitness oh it's like
00:11:37.680 pranking people in grocery in the grocery store getting into a hot tub fully clothed for some 0.98
00:11:43.980 reason god he's driving a car with why are you fat on the license plate why are you f-a-t-t 0.98
00:11:54.180 why are the comments turned off they're afraid of people roasting him 0.90
00:11:57.500 it's too spicy i really hope that that's not for bad but listen this was uploaded by someone with
00:12:05.100 13 subscribers okay fair enough in that intro mike we get richard simmons among other things
00:12:10.240 we get him doing a lot of fitness with a lot of costumes very weird yeah at one point we see him
00:12:15.760 dressed as an angel that costume is for a character he called the weight saint oh no
00:12:22.820 who was the angel on your shoulder reminding you to count calories right that's what he was doing
00:12:28.000 the grocery store was like telling that lady don't get that get this oh my god she was in
00:12:33.260 the produce aisle richard he had other characters on the show he did frequently did like sketches
00:12:39.620 on the show that i don't know if that's his gift i don't know if that's his gift he played a nun
00:12:46.140 named sister mary locale wait is it a whole talk show dedicated to weight loss this sounds so
00:12:54.860 boring it is a fitness themed half hour talk show every day oh my god why would anybody watch this
00:13:04.500 he has another character named anna maria spaghetti
00:13:08.020 he plays a reverend named reverend pounds okay who is a man of the tablecloth oh my okay that's
00:13:20.440 pretty good all right fair enough who says things like twinkies are my shepherd i shall not want
00:13:25.540 what and though i waddle through the valley of linguine and clams i shall fear no evil
00:13:32.600 richard that's terrible he has a sketch about broccoli going to the unemployment office because 0.67
00:13:40.540 quote people just don't eat vegetables anymore god he plays a cop from the slob squad he gives
00:13:48.420 out tickets at grocery stores to people who are buying fattening foods he had celebrity guests on
00:13:55.980 bob barker came on okay white came on phyllis diller jack lalane and barbara eden you wanted
00:14:03.860 your 70s celebrities yeah let's go oh man we're not explaining a single one of those barbara eden
00:14:09.540 just i dream of genie that's all you need to know oh i didn't actually know that one
00:14:12.900 it was my ringtone for years mine is just the my neck my back song in its entirety so doing the
00:14:21.960 richard simmons show allows richard to buy a house for himself he doesn't really want a house
00:14:27.120 he's never really home for it but everyone keeps telling him there's this gorgeous house and he
00:14:31.400 just ought to buy it so he buys this house he can afford it he buys this house and he calls his
00:14:38.240 family and says come out to la i'll fly y'all out i'm hosting christmas i got a house i'd love for
00:14:43.800 you guys to come out and see it his family arrives and his dad walks through the entire house making
00:14:49.900 note of all of the flaws that's such toxic dad behavior it is such a specific parent yeah yeah
00:14:59.080 the pipe's a little loose here richard you're like what what am i supposed to do about this 0.87
00:15:03.360 right now he the appliances are all stainless steel which is like a very fucking fancy thing 0.72
00:15:09.200 in the early 80s okay and he just keeps going they're gonna be covered in fingerprints
00:15:14.400 Ooh, anti-cybertruck king, Richard Simmons' dad.
00:15:17.740 And he's like, there are too many steps in one house.
00:15:20.680 I've never seen this many steps in my whole life.
00:15:23.100 Jesus Christ.
00:15:23.960 So Richard gets his family settled into their rooms
00:15:26.880 and his dad immediately starts shouting to him
00:15:31.080 about how there's no hot water, like the hot water is out.
00:15:34.240 Okay, I would complain about that.
00:15:35.460 I would complain about that.
00:15:36.200 So I'm going to send you his quote from his memoir
00:15:40.240 explaining what happened next.
00:15:42.160 We're back in the crying in the driveway section of the podcast episode.
00:15:46.020 Yeah, sorry, get ready to get sad about it, Dad.
00:15:48.040 My father said, we fly all the way out here and now we're in a mansion,
00:15:51.280 this big modern thing, and there's no hot water?
00:15:53.880 Do something, Richard.
00:15:55.080 I called the Beverly Wilshire Hotel and managed to get a string of rooms.
00:15:58.740 That's how I spent Christmas that year.
00:16:00.620 The next day, December 26th, I put the house up for sale.
00:16:04.520 I didn't want to clean all those windows anyway.
00:16:06.920 Oh, that's so sad.
00:16:08.160 It's so sad.
00:16:09.640 so like he bought the house because other people thought he should buy the house and he sold the
00:16:14.900 house because other people didn't like the house it's sort of like what did his dad like want like
00:16:20.560 what did he expect well i mean i think listen i'm just spitballing here but i think his dad was a
00:16:26.840 showbiz guy who gave it all up to have kids and here richard is having a good amount of success
00:16:34.040 in showbiz right and who said that he didn't want showbiz kids because they uh are annoying right
00:16:40.760 and i'm like well you got an annoying kid who is having a great deal of success in the thing that
00:16:45.560 you left yeah i will say over time richard says that his relationship with his father starts to
00:16:51.800 sort of soften oh he doesn't give a lot of great examples of that the closest he gets is like there
00:16:59.160 is a conversation that he recounts where his dad says i'm really proud of you oh okay it's clear
00:17:04.740 that that meant a lot to richard i remain skeptical in a protective way yeah like leave
00:17:10.860 him alone yeah yeah yeah you know what i mean because his dad has been like bad news and also
00:17:14.980 as part of that relationship softening richard's like i started sending him gifts okay and it's 0.99
00:17:20.340 like cashmere sweaters and tailored shirts and like nice ass shit look at what my gay son got 0.98
00:17:27.520 me look at the gay things that my side got me richard eventually ends up buying another house 0.99
00:17:31.720 and he wants to hire a housekeeper to look after the house because he has gone so much 0.98
00:17:36.980 richard simmons has many dogs and they are all dalmatians oh really like famously difficult
00:17:45.780 to care for dogs every dalmatian is named after a character in gone with the wind
00:17:53.800 wait really scarlet hattie ashley rhett dude richard simmons and i would not have been friends
00:18:01.960 if we met each other under different circumstances he also collected dolls
00:18:07.180 so many old dolls in the house yeah uh how you doing buddy there's no way i want to maintain
00:18:17.620 my affection for this man these are not the choices as an adult that i have made so he's
00:18:23.140 interviewing housekeepers and he interviews someone and he says hey do you like dogs
00:18:28.800 and she says yes i like dogs and when i was a kid i had a dalmatian and he goes you're hired
00:18:34.980 okay her name's theresa she lives with him for decades uh working as his housekeeper okay when
00:18:41.800 people ask him if he's married he says i live with a wonderful woman named theresa oh man oh okay
00:18:47.260 Yeah. According to Teresa, who has shared this since he passed, he also bought two grave sites
00:18:54.180 side by side, one for him and one for her. While Richard is doing the Richard Simmons show,
00:18:59.260 his father falls ill. He goes in for surgery for kidney stones. And Richard is like,
00:19:06.400 how bad do you need these kidney stones removed? You're 85. There are complications from the
00:19:12.800 surgery so richard flies out to new orleans to see his dad because he's 85 and he's experiencing
00:19:18.560 complications from surgery and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to put together the risk there
00:19:22.600 right he talks about seeing him in his hospital bed and sort of scarcely recognizing him he should
00:19:28.620 walk around his dad and criticize all the flaws with it your nose doesn't look right you're like 0.99
00:19:33.760 oh your ears are garbage once his father's released from the hospital richard gets him 0.98
00:19:38.140 all settled in and then says okay is there anything else that i can do for you and his 0.99
00:19:44.300 father says yes richard there is one other thing you can do for me go to rome and meet the pope
00:19:53.240 what and say a prayer with him for me this is like some sort of like three riddles to cross
00:20:01.920 this bridge type shit this is like a video game character he's like go on this quest i'm gonna go
00:20:07.780 cameras on for a second so that you can see okay okay okay wait what that is richard simmons meeting 0.98
00:20:13.100 the fucking pope wait so he actually pulled this off somehow he went to rome and he met the pope 0.91
00:20:19.400 he does not explain the mechanics of how that happened he sat next to him on a plane i think 0.99
00:20:24.300 he sat next to him on a plane yeah what do you do he like really yada yada's it where he's like i
00:20:30.180 called my agent who worked out the details and i was on a plane to and i'm like no yeah that is not
00:20:36.680 a sufficient explanation richard i wonder if he told the pope that he's jewish by the next year
00:20:42.040 spring of the next year leonard simmons senior died on april 18th 1983 this is a big loss for
00:20:51.760 richard his relationship with his dad was complicated and rough but even in its
00:20:56.160 complication and roughness it still loomed large in his life in a big way yeah and i think for 0.96
00:21:04.180 anybody who's grieved somebody who you who sucked who sucked you can say who sucked yeah who who's 0.82
00:21:09.940 really close to you and also who sucked yeah you know how complicated it can be to feel grief and 0.99
00:21:15.500 relief and anger and all of that at the same time this is how i felt when queer as folk went off 0.62
00:21:20.800 the air it was it was not good but it was very important to me so he's lost his father while all 0.98
00:21:26.860 of that is happening his career continues to take off in addition to his talk show in addition to
00:21:34.720 general hospital in addition to all of that he releases a diet book it's his first book called
00:21:41.960 never say diet is this supposed to be a pun on never say die yes he says he doesn't like the
00:21:48.720 word diet because the first word is die the first part of the word is die so his is a live it
00:21:55.900 program is what he calls it throughout. He takes these little things and he makes them so much
00:22:01.360 worse. They're so sweaty. I live it. So he's talking in this section about people who've
00:22:08.020 tried everything and just can't lose weight. And like, why should you listen to me about this?
00:22:13.660 Right. He's credentialing himself. He says, the difference is that you've failed and I haven't.
00:22:19.600 I used to weigh 268 pounds. I used to be fat and round and miserable and I didn't like it.
00:22:25.200 so i found the way to beat the fat and come out a winner and i know where you've gone wrong and
00:22:30.180 why you failed so far well this is kind of mean yeah and also like i'm so sorry you beat the fat
00:22:37.840 and came out a winner that's how you're describing like hospitalization induced by starving years
00:22:44.700 like what are you talking about he just said this more succinctly on the show with the why are you
00:22:50.160 fat license plate that's kind of like his whole thing yeah i think the other thing to know here
00:22:55.080 is that like this is absolutely the template for how former fat people are urged to feel about
00:22:59.980 themselves whether or not they feel that way yeah they're urged to feel and say like i was fat that
00:23:08.160 was bad i made a decision to be thin i had the grit to achieve it and i came out a winner right
00:23:13.520 and i should say he is not a person who has mentioned any formal training at any point in
00:23:19.800 any of this. Yeah. Good point. Yeah. He's just like a guy. I think a lot of his shit is based
00:23:24.920 on vibes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And his own experience is not replicable. Yeah. While all of this is 1.00
00:23:31.880 happening, he keeps teaching his classes at the anatomy asylum now called Slimmons. Finally,
00:23:37.480 he's becoming himself. He's starting to believe. He starts teaching classes. His regulars really
00:23:42.980 love him. And one of his regulars is named Ellen. She became a favorite of his. She made these teeny
00:23:48.720 tiny little teddy bears and would sell them at local gift shops and would bring them to him
00:23:54.020 as a gift. She'd bring him little bears every so often. He doesn't see her in class for a while
00:23:59.100 and asks after her and finds out that she has passed away. And he's like, what happened? And
00:24:06.440 the person is like, well, she was anorexic for a really long time. Oh, wow. And he says that at
00:24:12.760 this point, anorexia is not a term that he has heard. So he asked another couple of regulars
00:24:18.060 who are both nurses, what anorexia was.
00:24:22.060 Oh, wow.
00:24:22.780 This is the passage that he writes about it in his memoir.
00:24:27.100 He says,
00:24:28.000 So an anorexic is a person who stops eating for no reason and millions of reasons.
00:24:32.760 It's someone who gets smaller and smaller, just like those little teddy bears.
00:24:36.000 That alarmed me, because I had once starved myself to lose weight.
00:24:39.000 I asked the nurses, when I starved, was I anorexic?
00:24:42.640 Not necessarily, though it's a fine line, they told me.
00:24:45.160 You starve to lose weight.
00:24:46.460 Anorexics starve to disappear.
00:24:48.060 There are usually feelings of self-loathing or lack of self-worth connected with anorexia.
00:24:52.720 In Italy, when I'd starved, it was because I finally realized my own self-worth, so I thought.
00:24:57.420 I'd wanted to live and to look my best so I would fit in, although I'd gone about it in a very harmful way.
00:25:03.220 Oh, this is like what he's telling himself.
00:25:06.360 He's like, I didn't hate myself.
00:25:08.320 I just did it because I hated myself.
00:25:10.000 It's so sad.
00:25:12.920 Yeah.
00:25:13.180 And self-soothing by being like, even though I behaved indistinguishably from someone with profound anorexia, being thin is still healthier than being fat, even if you starve to do it.
00:25:25.200 It's like someone who is really bending over backwards to tell himself stories that make sense of his own experience and sort of protect it.
00:25:32.700 It's also so interesting how you can, like, you can make somebody stare this stuff in the face, right, of being, like, starving yourself because of low self-esteem and poor body image, et cetera, is unbelievably bad for you and an actual, like, diagnosed medical condition.
00:25:47.780 And he can look at that information and still be like, I mean, I did that, but not in, like, the bad way.
00:25:52.660 Yeah, yeah.
00:25:53.180 Like, it's not that you can, like, tell people that this exists and they'll have this eureka moment and be like, oh, my God, I shouldn't do that.
00:25:59.700 It's like, oh, oh, oh, but I don't count.
00:26:01.340 We are now, Michael, solidly in the mid 80s.
00:26:05.040 And 1985 is the dawn of the infomercial era.
00:26:11.240 Oh, yeah.
00:26:12.900 Another thing we have to explain.
00:26:14.900 I did not know why infomercials sort of showed up in the 80s.
00:26:20.020 I just sort of knew that they did.
00:26:22.520 Do you have a guess about why infomercials showed up?
00:26:24.660 The invention of the Ron Coe rotisserie oven.
00:26:27.320 It was so good.
00:26:28.360 They were like, let's put this on TV six hours a night.
00:26:30.380 The sham wow. They just had to. Look, they had to get the word out. This is part of the Reagan
00:26:36.320 administration's massive deregulation effort. What? So Reagan's changes to the FCC abolish
00:26:43.640 the fairness doctrine that had been in place since 1949, which was the doctrine that required
00:26:49.660 broadcast television to fairly cover differing viewpoints on controversial issues. Should
00:26:54.400 chicken rotate? Should chicken not rotate? This deregulation also removed restrictions on
00:26:58.840 advertising to kids so this is when we also start to get a huge wave of ads aimed directly at
00:27:06.220 children during children's programming and it loosened restrictions on how long an individual
00:27:12.500 advertisement could last so now you could have a 30 or 60 minute advertisement wait those were
00:27:19.480 advertisements i thought they were just like talk shows that only ever existed for one episode all
00:27:23.800 of them had the same catchphrase which is just like there's got to be a better way
00:27:28.440 the thing is i did watch them when i was like six years old and like i absolutely fell for it
00:27:34.080 i was like oh i learned on a talk show about like this knife that can cut paper or whatever i grew
00:27:39.420 up in a house with cutco knives and a miracle thaw i am not above the infomercial miracle
00:27:46.120 thaw was the best one it was just like a cutting board on the counter it's like meat defrosts like
00:27:52.460 yeah and it's metal so meat does not defrost it just makes the metal cold now everything's cold
00:28:00.620 congratulations so at this point when infomercials sort of roll around richard
00:28:06.120 simmons had a two-minute tv ad for his product deal a meal which is sort of like a hybrid board
00:28:12.680 game diet it's like a very bad board game and a okay diet we don't have time operate we don't
00:28:19.760 we're not doing it we can't run through every part of the richard simmons empire because we
00:28:25.280 would be here for i would come out of my office with a rip van winkle beard the diet board game
00:28:32.000 deal a meal for many of our listeners in our age group will have been their first diet because it's
00:28:37.020 sort of a gamified kid friendly is it like you spin a wheel and you can like eat an apple or a
00:28:41.640 blueberry or something no you have like a little play wallet and you have cards in the wallet that
00:28:48.580 are like you get seven vegetable cards and two lean protein cards oh my god it's a roguelike
00:28:55.020 and you move them over to the other side of your wallet when you eat them it's belatro
00:29:00.780 i don't know any of the words you're just don't worry about it
00:29:03.600 not a single one of welcome to my world aubrey anytime you mention survivor to me i don't watch
00:29:12.260 survivor or whatever 90 day fiance and you know that are those different direct your hate mail to
00:29:19.560 michael.com so the ad his two-minute ad for deal a meal was a big hit uh and so was the product
00:29:30.540 so the production company approaches him about doing an infomercial for deal a meal
00:29:34.960 he does and it becomes a big hit and richard just sort of keeps doing infomercials yeah
00:29:40.720 The very next year, 1986, Richard Simmons starts making exercise videos in 1982, Jane Fonda's
00:29:51.880 complete workout came out and was a massive hit. Right. One of the things that people say about
00:29:57.700 that time is that the video was so popular. It increased VCR sales. Right. I couldn't find
00:30:04.500 confirmation of that anywhere, but like, that's like, I think it's a gesture at how popular
00:30:10.220 those videos were yeah my understanding is that the rise of the vcr was like 99 pornography oh
00:30:17.620 that makes more sense 0.5 was probably at home fitness there's only two things that you need
00:30:22.940 privacy to watch most of those tapes were cranked out oh few of them used any recognizable songs
00:30:29.320 richard describes them as elevator music oh interesting so and i went back and did watch
00:30:34.640 some other i watched richard simmons workout tapes and i watched some others from the time
00:30:39.020 and you're like yeah it's a little bit like the um angela lansbury positive moves one right where
00:30:44.000 you're like oh it's just like sort of synthy vibes or uh in today's parlance creative comments
00:30:49.040 it's pottington bear so the production company once again approaches him and this time is like
00:30:55.420 what if you made an exercise tape and he was like cool cool but i want it to be like my classes where
00:31:00.480 we play my records and he wants it to be his favorite songs that he listened to as a kid in
00:31:06.740 the fifties and sixties. So he plays it's my party and he's a rebel and beyond the sea and
00:31:13.660 these older timey songs for the eighties and for his middle-aged audience, which is actually like
00:31:18.720 very smart. Yeah. He casts the videos like his classes. They are mostly women, but not exclusively
00:31:24.940 women. They include fat people and they include super fat people and they include visibly disabled 1.00
00:31:32.600 people it's radical inclusivity for that era yeah radical right but it's also inclusive in the name 0.99
00:31:41.020 of making those fat people thin yeah it's all on a relative scale it's totally advancing from what
00:31:46.420 it was before but it still has a long way to go yeah i'm gonna go cameras on again up until this
00:31:51.500 point richard's personal uniform is like a ballet dancer oh what tights and a leotard
00:32:02.360 and he looks gorgeous oh wow the hips oh right yeah like he looks stunning yeah he looks great
00:32:12.080 yeah i also recently discovered leggings oh you're gonna start getting into leggings i found
00:32:16.560 them at the children's section of goodwill like everything else i wear i'm a very small man he's
00:32:21.620 like people always told me i had great legs that they're right i do and i'm like yes you do richard
00:32:26.060 you do have great legs good job yeah man in the lead up to sweating to the oldies he meets a
00:32:31.120 wardrobe person named leslie wilshire who he calls quote my own edith head which i'm like boy
00:32:37.480 richard the references are not getting time later my guy she is the one who brings him
00:32:44.180 a pair of dolphin shorts for the first time wait explain dolphin shorts to me people have been
00:32:48.660 tweeting this at us too why are they dolphin shorts uh it was the brand name d-o-l-f-i-n
00:32:54.480 but then people over time thought it was like just the animal okay i've never heard of this
00:32:59.900 but those are like the little tiny short shorts that he's wearing in like every video seen them
00:33:03.320 yeah they're the little tiny short shorts they're like the dude version of hot pants this is my only
00:33:08.340 like traditional like we used to be a proper country take it's like bring back short shorts 0.82
00:33:13.600 on men shocking take from a gay man just want to see more of the gentleman she brings him 0.72
00:33:19.420 the dolphin shorts which he describes as being like very in at the time like this was like the
00:33:25.900 look yeah and she gives him a flowy flashy like tank top and he writes in his memoir about trying
00:33:34.720 it on for the first time i just sent you a quote he says in that tank top and those shorts i finally
00:33:41.560 knew what superman must have felt like when he put on the cape for the first time my legs looked
00:33:46.660 great and the tank top covered my waist it camouflaged the area where my underwear made
00:33:52.160 little love handle dents around my waist it also gave me an incentive to work a little harder on
00:33:57.280 my chest and arms it was the perfect outfit i just love him having this moment of like i look
00:34:04.020 awesome i feel awesome it makes me sad that built into that is like my waist is covered and i need
00:34:10.580 an incentive to work on my arms and that kind of thing right but i'm like this is a moment of
00:34:15.420 richard feeling straightforwardly like great about how he looks and how he feels in his body
00:34:21.600 and all of that sort of stuff and i'm like i love this for you there's also you striving to find any
00:34:26.220 like moments of joy in this book that is so joyous you're like we found one so this becomes his
00:34:33.440 signature look of course sweat into the oldies also became a huge hit in the exercise tape world
00:34:40.560 it made him even more of a household name and it opened the floodgates for sort of richard simmons
00:34:46.760 ink right yeah yeah he starts making branded clothing he starts making richard simmons workout
00:34:52.980 shoes he starts making fat-free popcorn which i would argue oh popcorn has fat-free popcorn what
00:34:59.060 it's just popcorn with like a bunch of nutra sweet sprinkles on it just dry plain air popped
00:35:05.660 popcorn also one thing we have not talked about yet is is the economics of all this home videos
00:35:11.300 for like 20 dollars in like 1985 money which is like 45 or 50 bucks now like it must have been
00:35:17.680 so profitable to have like a home videotape empire he also starts making huge appearances
00:35:24.080 in malls and big box stores okay in order to promote this merch like he releases a steamer
00:35:30.840 at one point okay he goes and does like a big like exercise class in the middle of a mall with
00:35:36.400 the steamer so they can't sell the steamer richard simmons keeps sort of energizer bunnying his way
00:35:42.660 through his work life right and until 1999 when his beloved mother shirley simmons passes away
00:35:52.280 and richard describes this very openly in the memoir as a real turning point for him it is
00:35:58.980 sort of an earthquake in his personal life this is from one of the final passages in richard simmons
00:36:06.060 memoir. He says,
00:36:36.060 ever. Eventually, I said, yes, of course, I'll go on. I feel like I know what's going to happen.
00:36:42.160 People aren't going to let him be serious about his mom because he's Richard and he's a clown 0.96
00:36:46.240 and nobody wants to hear him be serious. That's not the story that he tells. God, 0.95
00:36:50.140 I want to cancel Jay Leno again. God damn it. Well, you can do that for other reasons. 1.00
00:36:54.000 For the cars. Due to the cars. Due to the denim. After this little passage, he writes about
00:37:00.300 having a pep talk from his late mom that he heard her voice telling him to just be himself
00:37:06.960 and to not say anything to aggravate his brother, which I absolutely believe his mom said to him a
00:37:13.100 lot. Mr. Business, Mr. Heterosexual. So that is where the memoir ends is like, I don't feel like 0.83
00:37:19.980 being funny anymore, but I guess I kind of have to. Yeah, I got to go on Jay Leno and get made
00:37:25.400 fun of yeah it is hard to read and i think to me it has the tone of an editor being like you can't
00:37:33.760 end on such a sad note it's funny because his like alleged happy ending is also kind of a sad ending
00:37:38.300 yeah it's like continue being the clown for everyone yeah i mean i think that is sort of
00:37:43.380 the chapter that we're leading into is like culture does not let him yeah have some space
00:37:48.540 yeah from there richard continues to make some media appearances but he is sort of slowing down
00:37:54.940 from the 80s and 90s right how old is he at this point he's born in 46 you said right he's born in
00:37:59.700 48 48 okay so in 2000 he would have been uh 52 as i've gotten older i used to have like two hours
00:38:07.960 a day of extroversion in me and now i'm down to like one interaction with a trader joe's cashier
00:38:12.380 he probably started at a higher baseline than me but i can see how some of the energy that he's
00:38:17.860 using on this is probably dwindling by 52 it's funny because like at the time when people kind
00:38:22.700 have noticed that he had disappeared from public life it was sort of in some ways constructed as a
00:38:26.980 mystery but it seems like this book kind of answers this question yeah he was a guy with a lot of hurt
00:38:32.460 that he was carrying around and nobody really took any of that seriously or like listened to him and
00:38:37.980 he had this kind of one-dimensional public persona so like yeah of course he was just like i don't
00:38:42.420 really want to do this anymore that makes perfect sense to me doesn't it so i felt like i had sort
00:38:46.920 of, even just after reading the memoir, I was like, Oh, well, I feel like I have a real good
00:38:52.580 sense of why he disappeared from public life. He was experiencing grief. Right. And he just like,
00:38:58.600 was like, I don't have this level of like, you know, be the life of the party in me.
00:39:03.480 What an extremely human response. And he didn't step away from public life entirely. At this
00:39:10.520 point, he just started to slow down like people like our fellow people in middle age tend to do
00:39:17.640 cut to Mike and Aubrey going, we're not going to produce as many episodes. Yeah, it's like a normal
00:39:21.500 thing. So we start getting these reports of Richard getting really short with people and
00:39:27.460 which is something that doesn't really exist in previous media about him. Yeah. So in March of
00:39:34.400 2004, the Smoking Gun reported that Richard Simmons was charged with assault in the Phoenix
00:39:42.940 airport. I do not remember this at all. So here is the report from the Smoking Gun. It says,
00:39:48.620 the 54-year-old fitness guru laid the smackdown on one Chris Farney, a 23-year-old Mesa man who
00:39:55.220 happens to cage wrestle in his spare time. According to the Phoenix Police Department
00:39:59.780 report, when Farney spotted Simmons walking through the Sky Harbor International Airport,
00:40:03.840 he said, look, Richard Simmons, drop your bags. Let's rock to the 50s. Farney told cops he was
00:40:10.200 referring to an old Simmons workout tape. The diminutive star, guys, the diminutive star
00:40:15.780 responded by walking over to the strapping Farney and saying, it's not nice to make fun of people
00:40:21.420 with issues. He then slapped Farney's face. The motorcycle salesman who was not injured called
00:40:27.160 cops who cited an emotional and repentant Simmons for assault. I mean, don't slap people, but also
00:40:33.180 i can see how you would sort of snap yes and also richard simmons tells a very different version of
00:40:40.560 this story oh okay in 2012 richard gives an interview with men's health and he talks about 0.99
00:40:46.520 this instance richard simmons says that chris farney was talking shit about fat people and 0.79
00:40:52.740 making fun of the fat people in his videos that i believe dude have you seen the video of uh 0.98
00:41:00.140 bajork attacking that paparazzi why are you saying it like this when that's how you say it no it's
00:41:06.220 not i've heard a lot of icelandic people get it wrong but it's actually bajork okay have you seen
00:41:11.160 the video though of bjork slapping someone dude it's wild it's like normal paparazzi video of
00:41:16.680 like a celebrity leaving an airport you know you've seen this clip a million times and then
00:41:20.200 this lady goes uh welcome to london or like welcome to new york or whatever city it is 0.98
00:41:25.080 and bjork just goes fucking nuts on her like feral like jumps at her grabs her microphone and is just 0.99
00:41:32.380 like beating her fucking ass with this microphone and it's like out of context you're like what the 1.00
00:41:37.560 fuck like this like this pop star is completely unhinged but according to bjork later this is 1.00
00:41:43.800 this paparazzi lady who had been hounding her for like weeks and showing up in her like private 1.00
00:41:48.260 vacations and fucking with her and like it felt super passive aggressive just like welcome and 0.79
00:41:54.980 that's when she like really snapped yeah if you have the full context it's like i mean again it's 0.99
00:41:59.620 not defensible to sort of blow up and like physically attack somebody obviously but it
00:42:03.560 actually kind of makes sense in context or at least it's like more legible as human behavior
00:42:07.400 in context and i can see something like that happening with richard simmons you imagine that
00:42:12.060 this must have been some sort of prolonged interaction so when men's health asks richard
00:42:17.080 Simmons in 2012 about this instance. This is his response. He says, you can't just do that in front
00:42:23.940 of me. You can say anything you want to me, but you better not say anything that's going to upset
00:42:27.760 me about obese people. I've gotten emails where they go, my wife's a fat pig. She'll buy your 1.00
00:42:32.540 videos, but then she eats Doritos. I'll email that man back and say, you should be ashamed of 0.69
00:42:36.720 yourself. You are there to support your wife, not call her animal names. How dare you? This is the
00:42:41.260 woman that loves you. She's the mother of your children. You need to embrace her, tell her that
00:42:45.240 you love her and never call her names or embarrass her in front of other people yeah slap that 1.00
00:42:50.140 motherfucker richard right i was like i read that quote and i was like i have been fully turned 0.99
00:42:54.380 around on the slap yeah some people do deserve violence this is the kind of energy that you 0.99
00:43:00.980 never actually see from thin people or from formerly fat people who are now thin people
00:43:06.260 right yeah yeah oh sorry you were gonna yell about fat people in the middle of the airport 0.96
00:43:10.460 i'm absolutely gonna fucking yeah yeah human being equivalent of like getting out the squirt 0.97
00:43:15.600 bottle and being like hey yeah i would respect him more if he had a literal squirt bottle that 0.98
00:43:20.640 would be amazing this is the thing that i was thinking about recently is if i got into a fight
00:43:26.040 i i'm not confident that i would know how to throw a punch wait really you've never been in a fight
00:43:31.200 a physical fight you've never been in a physical fight sorry what about me oh because you went to
00:43:37.520 a fancy school somebody didn't go to public school no that is not what's happening here i'm just
00:43:44.060 docile i'm just chill i think i was in my 30s before i would consider being like hey you got
00:43:52.900 my order wrong at a restaurant dude the last day of eighth grade i was getting bullied by this other
00:43:58.960 this was like a chronicle of me being bullied in middle school now this this podcast were you
00:44:03.200 too sleepy to be bullied no this was after this was not after the seventh grade roller skating
00:44:07.820 this was after the eighth grade cruise and this this kid whose name i really want to say but i'm 0.98
00:44:12.160 not gonna say it who had bullied me all fucking year was fucking with me and he shoved me down 0.98
00:44:17.700 and i tripped and fell and he started he was like oh bitch or whatever and he started walking away 0.99
00:44:21.840 from me and i got up and i like i tapped him on the shoulder and i was like oh hey and he turned 0.99
00:44:26.980 around and i just did the cheapest fucking shot i just punched him in the face as hard as i could 0.99
00:44:30.760 and it felt so good i'm just like boom and he had fucked me all year and then he like fell down it 0.99
00:44:36.820 was like it was like uh mike tyson's punch out with like they go like different directions and 0.95
00:44:42.060 it takes like hella long to fall down and like as he was falling down i like realized what i had
00:44:47.260 done i was like i just punched like a popular kid in the face and i'm like not a popular kid
00:44:51.700 so like as he was like still slow motion falling i turned around and ran because i was like if he
00:44:56.960 gets up he's gonna beat the shit out of me obviously the only way i could have done this 0.72
00:45:00.360 is with a cheap shot so i like i booked my ass off to the school bus because i'm like if i can 0.97
00:45:05.100 get to the school bus it's the last day of school i'm just never gonna see this person again and 0.55
00:45:08.640 like if i can get to the school bus i'm like in safety i booked as fast as i could to the school
00:45:12.760 bus i like jump on i'm like get on the school bus and this this kid goes i heard you just
00:45:19.180 punch somebody in the face i was like how did the rumor get here travels fast before i got here 0.99
00:45:26.960 what the fuck and everyone's like is it true i'm like how the fuck do you people know about this 0.99
00:45:31.700 but yes it was and i feel great about it and i never saw that guy again god my heart was just 0.99
00:45:36.480 pounding for tiny mike oh dude i know for teeny tiny i was like the stakes could not be higher
00:45:42.820 and then i was like i know how it turns out you're here you're fine i did live but i'm still
00:45:47.380 tiny mike so in that same men's health interview richard simmons talks about some more things that
00:45:53.640 I personally found really troubling. He talks about keeping himself strictly to a 1500 calorie
00:46:00.940 a day diet, which is again, like Minnesota starvation study levels. It's a little bit
00:46:06.420 lower. He was born with what he calls, quote unquote, a crippled leg and has been wearing
00:46:12.600 corrective shoes since early childhood. It's so weird. He doesn't say that in the book.
00:46:17.940 He just deals with it. It's painful. But he says, quote, thank goodness for ice and hot baths. So
00:46:23.260 you get the impression that he is in pain with some regularity enough that he has a routine
00:46:29.380 around it. Right. Right. And his job is exercising in public. It's also funny how, again, it's like
00:46:37.220 he was telling us in public, like, I'm a more complicated public figure than you think I am.
00:46:42.240 And just like, nobody listened. Yeah. He said he described his role in the world as being part
00:46:48.440 priest and part clown. Yeah. Oh God. It is no mystery at all that this was a person who needed 0.97
00:46:55.960 a break. Yeah. Yeah. So in February of 2014, just a couple of years after that men's health
00:47:04.260 interview, Richard Simmons stops making public appearances. It's not long before rumors start
00:47:11.300 to circulate about his quote unquote disappearance, which is a sort of wild word choice in this case.
00:47:16.940 right right it's not someone who's vanished off the face of the planet it's a guy who's at home
00:47:21.480 and like a by that point like 60 something year old guy who just like isn't out and about doing
00:47:26.080 stuff anymore absolutely just like totally he's basically retired the wrench in the works here
00:47:30.640 is that he also sort of stops responding to a bunch of people that he knew through slimmons
00:47:38.780 yeah friends start calling some of them show up at the house and theresa turns them away
00:47:44.940 and she tells them that he doesn't want any visitors right now on a friend level i can
00:47:50.860 absolutely understand how that would be like really hurtful and confusing but also this is
00:47:57.260 not an unclear boundary well his life probably feels like a prison of his own making right
00:48:01.980 because if he's playing this role where he's everybody's therapist he might not want to play
00:48:06.520 that role anymore and he might feel like a lot of those relationships even as you know you can say
00:48:10.860 it's kind of self-inflicted and and on some level these people of course do care about him
00:48:14.340 you can see somebody who's created this life for themselves that they just don't really want to
00:48:18.420 participate in anymore yeah totally that's not like necessarily defending it i'm like my feelings
00:48:23.100 would be hurt too but also it's like you kind of it's understandable and human so in january of
00:48:30.300 2015 tmz reports that the lapd did a welfare check on richard simmons they had gotten an anonymous tip
00:48:39.360 they reported out publicly like he's okay he's quote responsive and alert like he's fine then
00:48:48.020 over a year later the new york daily news runs a story called the haunted twilight of richard
00:48:55.260 simmons oh my god this is where the sort of disappearance quote-unquote story really seems
00:49:02.080 to take off it's just a bunch of people who they considered him a friend who were like he's not
00:49:08.420 returning calls right my favorite of his friends was a woman named june who owned a store called
00:49:15.340 wigs today in los angeles and said that she and richard became friends because he was a regular
00:49:21.480 customer at wigs today and i was like i love this okay i love that he was like i'm at the
00:49:27.000 wigs store so much i've made friends there but does she say it's just like we used to hang out
00:49:35.700 now we don't hang out anymore is that like the extent of it well there's a fair amount of that
00:49:39.520 but the the bulk of the story the main source is moro olivera moro olivera was on richard simmons
00:49:49.300 payroll first as a massage therapist and then as a personal assistant there have been all these
00:49:55.960 rumors that they were partners right that they were romantically involved but richard simmons
00:50:01.580 doesn't say that ever out loud to anybody does the guy does morrow identify himself as a boyfriend
00:50:08.440 or partner uh he never really says either at least not that i have seen interesting okay he lived in
00:50:14.820 an apartment that richard simmons owned and he according to him he sent in a rent check every
00:50:21.180 month that he says that simmons never cashed oh okay so he would just write a check every month
00:50:26.500 and richard simmons would like you know throw it in the garbage or whatever recycle it he seemed
00:50:30.520 like a recycler? Yeah, he did. He did. So we're going to start with one of his early,
00:50:34.180 one of the early passages about Moro's story from this New York Daily News story.
00:50:40.240 Let's talk it over, Oliveira said. I want to sit here and make sure you'll be okay.
00:50:44.460 Let's go upstairs. I'll give you a massage and relax you. Simmons called up to Teresa Rivellas,
00:50:49.040 his live-in housekeeper of nearly three decades. Moro is going upstairs with me, he said. No,
00:50:54.100 no, no, Rivellas shouted from the second floor, according to Oliveira. Get out, get out. Oliveira
00:50:59.420 looked at his friend who told him in a soft voice, you've got to go. Oliveira leaned in towards
00:51:04.160 Simmons. Is she controlling your life now? As Oliveira tells it, Simmons looked down and with 0.98
00:51:09.660 one resigned word confirmed his worst suspicions. Yes, this was the last time he saw his friend.
00:51:15.600 This is sort of the key part of his story. He believes, and the story that he tells to the New
00:51:22.420 York Daily News is that Teresa is keeping Richard Simmons captive in his home. Okay. He doesn't
00:51:29.660 offer a motive for that. He just says she is a witch who practices witchcraft. Oh, he literally 0.95
00:51:36.020 says this? Yes. He's careful to note in the interview that that isn't part of many Americans
00:51:41.340 belief system, but that it's a very real thing where he comes from, which is Brazil and where
00:51:46.000 teresa comes from which is mexico he tells the new york daily news that he thinks that black magic
00:51:53.460 is what caused richard to be in his words tormented oh so a very unreliable narrator
00:51:59.360 would you like another layer of unreliable yeah give it to me he wrote and self-published a book
00:52:05.240 about the whole situation called king rich and the evil witch oh he learned from richard you
00:52:13.940 could tell maybe they were boyfriends maybe something rubbed off a shared love for terrible
00:52:19.760 titles he calls the book a living fairy tale he self-publishes it characters in the book include
00:52:30.060 the good goofy king rich the evil witch bereza which is theresa there is king rich's brother
00:52:41.300 prince benny lenny it's the fictional story of bitchered bimmins no relation to any real and
00:52:50.700 then there's a character just called the artist and that is very clearly morrow this beautiful
00:52:56.980 intelligent young man who gets caught in the witchcraft yes and the thing that i find maybe
00:53:01.740 most galling about this piece is that it ignores its own context in this piece they talk to richard
00:53:09.780 simmons manager who's like he's fine he's been on the road for 40 years he's just at home yeah he'd
00:53:16.240 had trouble with his knees it makes sense to me that you would need what he got which was a full
00:53:21.880 knee replacement on one side and he needed another and it reports in this piece that his last living
00:53:29.380 dalmatian hattie had a terrible long health decline before ultimately being put down
00:53:38.000 morrow says in the piece that he visited at 2 p.m on a sunday and richard was asleep and morrow was
00:53:44.360 like this is out of control you got to get out of the house and you got to get up and at him and i 0.98
00:53:48.780 was like his fucking dog just died he's in his 60s you let the man nap let the man have a depression 0.99
00:53:56.000 nap when he has lost so many beloved people and creatures in his life right yeah i think especially 1.00
00:54:04.120 in periods of grief like it does call you to like zoom out on your life and be like is this what i 0.60
00:54:09.920 fucking wanted yeah yeah it's very conceivable that in that state you would go i think i'm 0.82
00:54:14.540 actually fucking done working yeah in response to all of this dust kicking up richard gives an 0.99
00:54:21.740 interview to the today show saying he's totally fine he's doing what he wants to do nobody needs 0.96
00:54:28.100 to worry yeah the fact that it is an audio only interview just adds fuel to the fire for people
00:54:35.640 it's true crime brain happening in direct response to richard simmons being like i'm fine please stop
00:54:43.240 they're like this means he's definitely not fine this whole time i'm thinking like okay you're a
00:54:49.460 fan of richard simmons it turns out he's like been whatever semi kidnapped by his maid or whatever
00:54:55.600 or like yeah he's in some like severe depressive funk now what what do you do you don't know this
00:55:02.640 person it really just seems like people were treating him like an atm for validation yeah and
00:55:07.700 not like a person and when he was like hey i'm a person and i need a break people were like
00:55:11.900 where the fuck is my money this atm is busted where did it go weird they're absolutely treating 0.50
00:55:18.520 him like a utility that got shut off also you're allowed to just not be a public figure anymore 0.99
00:55:23.520 i think you and i are probably both two people who will just one day be like oh i'm done yeah
00:55:28.820 i will also be kidnapped by my housekeeper okay and there will be a strange brazilian
00:55:33.020 man who tells a story about me that's brian bicep i'm gonna be there
00:55:37.420 how dare you do a call back to that my telephone habits to a bonus episode too ridiculous bold as
00:55:49.180 brass so in november 2016 richard simmons closes slimmons okay there's not really a formal statement
00:55:58.820 from richard they just like post up signs on the door being like hey this is gonna be our last day
00:56:04.540 i'm sure this just digs up the controversy again right so on the last day people are like maybe
00:56:10.460 he'll show up for the last class he doesn't he hasn't shown up to anything in over two years at
00:56:16.100 this point. Yeah. He finally later addresses it in a Facebook post. Here is that post. He says,
00:56:23.440 I've never been very good with beginnings and endings. Well, it's been over 40 years now and
00:56:28.140 I'm finally taking my own advice. I'm being kind to myself and putting myself first. I'm making
00:56:33.620 changes and taking time to do the things I want to do. Please know that I'm in good health and
00:56:37.940 I'm happy. No one has ever been able to tell me what to do and the same is true today. I'm still
00:56:42.680 independent, determined, and opinionated. I simply am making a new beginning for myself,
00:56:47.440 quietly and in my very own special way. Slimmons closes in November of 2016.
00:56:52.760 It's four months after even that last chapter that Missing Richard Simmons premieres.
00:57:00.700 Okay, right.
00:57:01.520 So at this point, there's been the wellness check. There's been the Today Show interview.
00:57:05.540 There's been this Facebook post about Slimmons. He's been really clear. I am taking time on
00:57:12.660 off his manager is saying that and that's when this podcast comes out it's hosted by a journalist
00:57:19.240 who had become a regular at slimmons uh and who had been over to dinner at richard simmons house
00:57:25.000 this is kind of the apex of the richard simmons is missing narrative right this is the biggest
00:57:30.860 stage that it gets the next month on the heels of the podcast release the lapd got more tips to
00:57:38.360 conduct another welfare check. Man. They go so far as to issue a public statement saying that
00:57:44.880 Richard Simmons is, quote unquote, perfectly fine. And quote, right now he is doing what he wants to
00:57:51.100 do. And that is his business. Man. In the following month, the month after that, Richard
00:57:57.200 Simmons was hospitalized for severe indigestion. While he's in the hospital, he posts a photo of
00:58:04.200 himself on Facebook with the caption, I'm not missing, just a little under the weather.
00:58:10.460 Yeah. But the picture is from a few years earlier, because as we know, Richard Simmons in the
00:58:15.300 hospital is probably not posting a picture of what Richard Simmons looks like while he's in
00:58:19.260 the hospital. Oh, no. So then I'm sure the internet sleuths are like, oh, the picture's old.
00:58:23.760 Whatever. Remember the Kate Middleton psychotic thing? Yes. People are like, it's an old picture.
00:58:28.100 He's faking it. This is Teresa doing it. I also think there are plenty of public figures who
00:58:33.160 would not elect to post a picture of what you actually look like when you're checked into a
00:58:38.100 hospital yeah exactly especially if you're making a post that's trying to reassure people also
00:58:42.340 ultimately richard simmons is a boomer and he's like he's just posting on facebook he's like i'm
00:58:47.500 posting a little thing and i'll just put a photo on there why not totally just like attached to the
00:58:52.000 photo and the whole internet is just like what about the metadata of the photo like people just
00:58:56.300 like zoom in when like he might just not have been thinking about it all that hard right richard
00:59:00.320 simmons was born the same year as both of my parents and i'm like oh was he also gonna attach
00:59:04.640 a photograph of his tv screen the post is in all caps for some reason he doesn't know why
00:59:12.380 he doesn't know how to turn that off he also facetimed someone but it was just showing his
00:59:16.780 ear because he lifted the phone up that same year the national inquirer starts publishing a series
00:59:24.260 of articles alleging that richard simmons was trans and started accessing gender affirming care 0.99
00:59:29.680 what one of the headlines was richard simmons colon he's now a woman oh my fucking god where 0.99
00:59:36.700 the fuck is this coming from it's the national inquirer right so there someone's kicking up 0.99
00:59:42.320 some dust that is all made possible by the he's missing narrative right yeah yeah if we don't 0.99
00:59:49.300 have the he's missing narrative richard simmons name is not in the news and this doesn't become
00:59:53.780 a story that the national inquirer probably cares to publish much less cares to publish at the level
00:59:59.120 that they did it's funny contrasting him with johnny carson who also like retired from public
01:00:03.700 life very publicly right like there was this like series of shows the end of the tonight show
01:00:06.980 and then he just never did anything again he just like played golf and hung out on his yacht
01:00:10.980 but like no one cared there wasn't like a narrative of like he's missing or whatever he also it appears
01:00:16.620 stopped hanging out with all of his like celebrity friends yeah totally he disappeared from public
01:00:20.620 life and most people were like oh this is kind of cool yeah it's weird that the culture did not
01:00:24.440 allow richard simmons to do that when we allow people to do this all the time absolutely
01:00:28.180 so on july 13th 2024 richard simmons died at his home in los angeles he was 76 years old
01:00:39.080 according to the la medical examiner his cause of death was a fall the day before with heart
01:00:46.280 disease reported as a contributing factor according to people magazine's interview with
01:00:53.180 tereza revelis this is her first time speaking to the media it's after his death she says that
01:00:58.160 he spent his final days doing what he wanted he was working with a well-known composer on a
01:01:04.040 broadway musical about his life he was in touch with his fans and was writing people letters
01:01:09.840 and he was planning some media appearances for the first time in a while she was like he was
01:01:14.780 kind of starting to feel up to like doing an interview or something so there's a funeral mass
01:01:19.880 for richard in new orleans new orleans has embraced richard simmons with its whole heart
01:01:26.880 people from new orleans love richard simmons so much we heard from some listeners who were at
01:01:32.440 that funeral mass and one of them said that they were really shocked and sad to see that the the
01:01:39.260 church was not full what yeah that's shocking it really underscores this sort of theory that i've
01:01:47.600 been developing of like again like validation atm yeah you know we talked in the last episode about
01:01:53.140 like these are all ways that formerly fat people are encouraged to feel the way that people were
01:01:59.000 interacting with him is as a currently fat person right which is like he doesn't have a story of his
01:02:03.600 own he's the fat best friend right right he's the gay best friend he's the bit characters who are 0.55
01:02:11.520 there for comic relief and the comic relief just is their difference right just say rosie o'donnell 0.56
01:02:17.020 in sleepless in seattle this is taking forever also when all the information was so available 0.96
01:02:21.320 too it's like the man wrote a fucking memoir percent yeah none of this was hidden at any 0.95
01:02:28.080 point from anyone he was saying this in interviews for years he was saying it in his book when people 0.99
01:02:36.040 asked how he was he would be pretty honest yeah people put me you know take me out of the box
01:02:42.280 when they need entertainment and then put me back in the box when they don't yeah i think he was
01:02:46.660 right in the same way there's like the happy meatball richard and the selling his jewelry
01:02:51.900 to people richard and like we want the best for all these richards there's also i think the last
01:02:57.840 10 years of his life richard yeah we don't know that much about that period of his life he never
01:03:03.520 got the chance to write about it he never got the chance to tell us about it but like i choose to
01:03:07.260 believe that he got some of what he wanted and he decided at the end you know like he said in his
01:03:13.580 Facebook post, like he's an independent guy. He made a decision that this is what he wanted to do
01:03:18.280 with the last 10 years of his life. And like, all evidence is that he did. Yeah, I mean, I think
01:03:22.480 there's a lot of internet talk about like, so and so doesn't owe you anything, right? And I'm like,
01:03:28.300 this is a moment where we have to go, Richard Simmons didn't owe us anything. Yeah, that
01:03:32.960 doesn't mean that people didn't have genuine feelings about him. Yeah, don't still, that
01:03:37.260 doesn't mean that people aren't allowed to feel close to him. It just means that we should do a
01:03:42.400 little check on like how much of that was us projecting. I think it's also worth thinking
01:03:46.520 about like people in your life who have that kind of energy that like really kind of social energy.
01:03:50.940 It's, it's, it's always important to sort of check in with those people to make sure there
01:03:54.420 isn't something behind it or they're training you not to see them in a certain way. I always
01:03:59.580 like, uh, my, um, this is a really dark little transition, but my, uh, my friend who killed
01:04:04.820 himself when I was in my twenties was very much like that, like social butterfly, everybody's
01:04:08.760 friend always making jokes the last person you think would be struggling with stuff and then
01:04:13.640 out of the blue he killed himself it's like right people it doesn't mean every single person who's
01:04:17.620 like bubbly is like hiding some dark secret underneath it but like just because somebody
01:04:21.500 is bubbly and like oh my god you seem so happy doesn't mean you shouldn't be checking in with
01:04:25.620 that person yeah i mean i think it is sort of incumbent on all of us right to like do a little
01:04:30.780 relational inventory on that front is there someone who you're treating as just sort of
01:04:34.800 entertainment for you or as a vessel for your complaints or your grievances or as just a source
01:04:41.400 of guidance for you right are you treating someone as a wellspring of a resource or are you treating
01:04:46.520 them as a person and things if you recognize us from the podcast and you come up to us and i get 0.99
01:04:50.540 the slightest whiff that that's the way you think of us i will slap you in the face i will spin you 0.98
01:04:55.700 around like tech and eight i might start carrying around a tiny squirt bottle you've had some bad 0.99
01:05:00.660 interactions too. I feel like, yeah, just a can full of rocks. I can shake.
01:05:30.660 Thank you.