Richard Simmons found dead one day after celebrating 76th birthday
Legendary fitness instructor Richard Simmons has died, according to TMZ.
Law enforcement sources told the news outlet that police responded to a call from his housekeeper before 10 a.m. on Saturday. They later pronounced him dead at the scene.
While Simmons reportedly fell in the bathroom of his home on Friday evening, no foul play is suspected at this time, the report further claims. It’s also not clear if the bathroom is where his housekeeper found him.
Simmons’ rep did not immediately respond to Page Six’s request for comment.
Simmons, who just turned 76 on Friday, stepped away from the spotlight 10 years ago. However, he took part in a rare interview with People recently, saying he would blow out a candle to celebrate his birthday.
“But the candle will probably be on a zucchini,” Simmons said. “You know, I’m a vegetarian.”
When asked how he felt about turning 76, he said, “I am grateful that I’m here, that I am alive for another day. I’ll spend my birthday doing what I do every day, which is to help people.”
Simmons’ death comes months after he suffered a health scare.
In March, the “Sweatin’ to the Oldies” instructor told his Facebook followers that he had been diagnosed with skin cancer.
“Mirror mirror on the wall what’s that blemish which is so small? There was this strange looking bump under my right eye. I had a tube of neosporin which I would put on in the morning and the evening…. it was still there. It was time to call my dermatologist,” Simmons wrote in a lengthy post at the time.
“I sat in his chair and he looked at it through a magnifying mirror. He told me he would have to scrape it and put it under the microscope. Now I am getting a little bit nervous.
“He comes back about 20 minutes later and says the C word. You have cancer,” he continued. “I asked him what kind of cancer and he said. Basel Cell Carcinoma. I told him to stop calling me dirty names. He laughed.”
Simmons said he was asked to seek treatment from a “cancer doctor” who had to “burn” his skin with a small instrument to “remove the cancer cells.”
After three painful procedures, the doctors “got all the cancer cells out.”
News of his diagnosis came one day after Simmons worried his fans by revealing he was “dying.” He later backtracked and apologized for any “confusion,” saying “it was a message about saying how we should embrace every day that we have.”
Simmons released dozens of fitness tapes including “Sweatin’ to the Oldies,” “Party off the Pounds,” “Blast Off,” “Pump and Sweat” “Tonin Uptown,” “Tonin Downtown,” and more throughout his career.
After retreating from the spotlight in 2014, Simmons closed his iconic Beverly Hills, Calif., fitness studio, Slimmons, in 2016.
His abrupt absence led the Los Angeles Police Department to conduct a welfare check at his home in 2017, but detectives subsequently said the weight-loss expert was “perfectly fine.”
In 2022, Simmons told The Post via his rep that he was “happy, healthy and living the life he has chosen to live.”
