Richard Simmons Dead at 76 – Notice Today Web

Richard Simmons has died at geezerhood 76, his longtime publicist, blackamoor Estey, addicted to PEOPLE.

The professed shape railcar died at his Los Angeles bag after his birthday. TMZ was prototypal to inform the programme on Saturday, July 13, citing accumulation enforcement. The activity said no dishonor endeavor was suspected, and that polity responded to a call from a housekeeper at around 10 a.m. PT on Saturday.

“The concern has genuinely forfeited an angel,” Estey told PEOPLE of Simmons.

The shape guru — who had not been seen in open since 2014 — posted on ethnic media as fresh as Sat morning topical time. He also permit fans undergo the period before — on his 76th date — that he “never got so some messages most my date in my life.”

“I am movement here composition emails. Have a most bonny rest of your Friday,” he wrote on Friday, July 13, in digit of his test digit posts.

Simmons most fresh crosspiece to PEOPLE most his plans to fete his 76th birthday, in a story publicised on Friday. At the time, he said he designed to expiration discover a some candles for the occasion.

“But the lamp module belike be on a zucchini. You know, I’m a vegetarian,” he said, before admitting that he would essay “maybe digit Pepperidge Farm Milano cookie.”

Simmons additional that he change “good” to be motion 76. “I am glad that I’m here, that I am aware for added day,” he said. “I’ll pay my date doing what I do every day, which is to support people.”  

The favourite pedagogue had crushed beginnings. He was dropped poet Teagle Simmons to variety entertainer parents on July 12, 1948. He was upraised in the land Quarter of New Orleans, where he held mismatched jobs — including commerce pralines at the geezerhood of 8 — to support his parents discover with money.

Simmons was an fleshiness female and ofttimes excited by his classmates for his size. By the instance he mark broad school, the 5’7″ grapheme had reached 270 lbs. But it wasn’t until he conventional an nameless state on his automobile screen informing him, “Fat grouping expire young; gratify don’t die,” that Simmons definite he necessary to retrograde coefficient for good. He ended up feat on an unwholesome fasting binge, losing 112 lbs. in meet two-and-a-half months, and landed in the infirmary when his kidneys malfunctioned.

When Simmons touched to Los Angeles in the 1970s, he definite to see every he could most nutrition to ready his coefficient soured in a flourishing way. In 1975, he unsealed a upbeat matter store/exercise studio, Ruffage and Anatomy Asylum. The flat became a impact with celebrities, and Simmons’ grapheme also began to rise.

Over the incoming quaternary decades, Simmons lived a chronicle in the prominence as a imbibe society shape icon, emotional fivesome bestselling books, producing more than 50 workout videos, hosting coefficient expiration cruises, doctrine classes at his Slimmons flat in Beverly Hills, and attending on speech shows and speech tours.

Then in primeval 2014, Simmons prefabricated the selection to withdraw from the open eye. He prefabricated his terminal open attendance in Jan of that year, and taught his test class at his notable Slimmons flat — which he officially winking in Nov 2016 — that February.

Simmons initially said he was attractive instance soured to better after a articulatio injury, but was never seen in open again.

In March 2016, Simmons titled the Today show to feature that he was in beatific upbeat and not existence held at his bag against his will, despite reports.

“I do what I poverty to do as I’ve ever done,” he said at the time. “I’ve taught, like, thousands and thousands of classes and, you know, correct today I meet poverty to variety of meet verify tending of me. I meet rattling don’t poverty to do anything. I meet don’t poverty to be motion anymore. It sure has condemned its sound on me.”

He added: “You haven’t seen the terminal of me. I’ll become backwards and I’ll become backwards strong.”

In June 2016, Simmons was hospitalized for dehydration, but said in a evidence after the incident that “now I am opinion great.” He was also hospitalized on Apr 17, 2017 after experiencing “severe indigestion,” his trainer archangel Catalano addicted to PEOPLE at the time.

Public welfare in Simmons was drummed up in Feb 2017 when he became the person of the Missing Richard Simmons podcast. Simmons’ longtime cloth blackamoor Estey told PEOPLE he and Simmons did not move in the podcast because “if there was a think for us to interpret or to cooperate, then we would sure hit finished it, but we meet didn’t see the need.”

“He prefabricated a pick to verify a fortuity from open life, which he has the correct to do,” Estey continued. “People requirement to attitude that and not venture that there’s something wrong, when there’s null wrong.”

Even though he had retreated from the open eye, Simmons continuing to advance a easygoing chronicle at bag with his longtime housekeeper nun Reveles, according to his senior brother Lenny, who was digit of the some grouping to rest in occurrence with the star.

“He’s doing just what he wants to do,” Lenny Simmons told PEOPLE. “It’s not same he’s movement around doing dead null and unsealed into blank space, because that’s not him. I undergo he reads, I undergo he watches TV, I undergo he rests. I move he exercises because he looks good. He loves his birds and his garden. He has a aggregation of hummingbirds that he feeds — he has hundreds of them. He helps prepare — he’s ever been a beatific cook.”

Speculation that Simmons strength re-emerge began to uprise after his manager’s company, Prominent Brand + Talent, declared on Apr 6, 2017, that it had secured the inner worldwide rights to equal Simmons for merchandising, licensing and endorsements. “All I crapper say, at small for now, is it is possible,” Catalano told The New royalty Times most whether Simmons would be direct participating in forthcoming deals. “But it is still to be determined, I would say.”

In March 2024, Simmons unsealed up most his upbeat and revealed in an emotional post on Facebook that he had been diagnosed with wound cancer after noticing a “bump low my correct eye.” At the time, he mutual with supporters that he was told he had essential radiophone carcinoma, and that after sight a doctor, his cancerous cells were successfully removed. The communication came life after he mutual added message on Facebook most dying, which sparked upbeat concerns. He after apologized for the “confusion.”

“Sorry some of you hit gotten status most my communication today. Even the advise has gotten in contact with me. I am not dying,” Simmons wrote on X (formerly famous as Twitter). “It was a communication most locution how we should acceptation every period that we have. Sorry for this confusion.”

Simmons module be remembered by his fans and friends for his colorful personality and substance to serving others.

“This Negro is a concern treasure,” Estey previously told PEOPLE. “He has helped jillions of grouping retrograde jillions of pounds, he has ransomed jillions of lives. For 40 years, he took tending of everyone added but himself.”