The 1980s had a handful of big celebrities in the world of fitness, one name being Richard Simmons. Simmons in particular was known and loved for his eccentric and often outspoken personality. He made appearances as a celebrity as well as made fitness content for plenty of Americans in the 80s, but later on he disappeared from the spotlight entirely. This seems to have been due to his knees being weak and wanting a more quiet life, but it didn’t change his fame and many fans knew and missed him over the years. What don’t you know about this figure? Here are some facts about Richard Simmons.
First Tries at Careers
Simmons was raised in a religious home, which meant he went into the world of religious careers very quickly after high school. But he’s since stated that wasn’t for him as his personality was too loud and outgoing for most careers in this field. He also tried things like fashion illustration, cosmetics work, and even the field of medicine before finding fitness as his niche.
Growing up Large
As with many other fitness stories both in the past and present world of media, Richard wasn’t the healthiest kid. He was even a fat model in the 60s, but turned towards an eating disorder soon after from comments and notes left for him regarding his weight that rattled him. But since recovery he lived and thrived on loving himself and just trying to stay moving and eating well.
Revolutionary Fitness
At the time of his early fame in fitness, most fitness tapes would sell just as popular as many huge celebrity works. But these were often filled with toned and shapely folk. The change that Simmons brought in having everyday people also trying to lose weight in his tapes made such a huge revolution in this world of exercise at home, and it sold millions of copies of his tapes.
Shopping Mall Meetings
When his career began to progress, Richard often wanted to reach his audience in ways that would really hit home and help others. He turned to meeting fans in shopping malls and even talked on the matter some. He thought that no matter your standing in life, you would go to a shopping mall. And that meant he could reach many more people that way.
Incidents of Quiet
It seems that Simmons was often easily swayed or hurt by actions of others, once slapping a man that made a sarcastic comment berating his fitness tapes. He even stopped being on David Letterman’s show for years after David sprayed Simmons with a fire extinguisher as a joke that turned into a severe asthma attack for Simmons.
Now that you know some things even avid fans may not know, you can learn even more about this interesting figure of our history of celebrity culture that continues to be somewhat of a mystery in modern media. Plenty of folk still wonder why or how Richard Simmons decided to go quiet from media for so long of a time, and whether he will ever return to the spotlight fully in his older age as time goes by. For now, we at least know that Simmons is out there living a life plenty of us could only dream of with quite the high net worth and a lot of unique things left behind from his days in fitness media.