Name: 'Male to Female Transgender Richard Simmons'
Uploaded: 2022-02-06T12:05:14+00:00
Duration: T5M16S
Description: Watch Fitness Tube FitnessArchives | 'Male to Female Transgender Richard Simmons'

'Male to Female Transgender Richard Simmons'

Posted Feb 6, 2022

'Male to Female Transgender Richard Simmons'

'What the heck happened to Richard Simmons? Male to Female Transgender. The ‘National Enquirer’ Says Richard Simmons is ‘Now a Woman’ \'Missing Richard Simmons\' highlights fitness icon\'s mysterious whereabouts Host of the viral podcast Dan Taberski chronicles his quest to find Simmons, who has not been seen in public for over 1,000 days. The ‘National Enquirer’ Says Richard Simmons is ‘Now a Woman’ LOS ANGELES — Richard Simmons is gone. His fitness studio in Beverly Hills is shuttered. On its stoop is a sun-bleached edition of the Beverly Hills Courier from January. Inside is the wreckage of a livelihood: piles of debris, tongues of pink insulation, a dusting of pulverized drywall on the ballet barres. In the middle of it all, a forlorn scale where his students measured pounds sacrificed to the oldies. “I knew him very well, but I don’t know what happened to him,” says Germen Helleon, the proprietor of a hair salon next door, on Civic Center Drive. A short drive up into the Hollywood Hills is the Simmons manse. It is the color of buttercream. White Corinthian pillars divide its Grecian facade. The lace curtains are drawn. A Range Rover sits in the short crescent driveway behind a white iron gate. There is no buzzer, and the mailbox — a miniature copy of the house itself — appears to be sealed shut. A red van of star-seeking tourists idles briefly, barely stopping. In the past, Simmons would scurry out of his house to greet the gawkers. He was a particularly friendly mammal on the Hollywood safari. Now, nothing. There’s something colorful in the window at the peak of the house. Balloons? One of his many feathered costumes? Is Richard up there, in the attic, watching us now? (Is he wearing a boa?) On Feb. 15, 2014, the flamboyant fitness guru did not show up to teach his regular $12 exercise class at his studio, which was called Slimmons. He cut off contact with friends and hasn’t been seen in public since. One of his regular students was a filmmaker-writer named Dan Taberski, who last month launched a podcast called “Missing Richard Simmons.” It is currently the No. 1 podcast on iTunes in the United States, Australia, Canada and Great Britain. “I think he’s important,” Taberski says in Episode 1, justifying his loving invasion of Simmons’s privacy. Richard Simmons is many things: manic, brilliant, troubled, tough, hilarious, ridiculous. But important too? “Fat people die young. Please don’t die.” The letter saved his life, he’s said over the years, but not before imperiling it. Over two and a half months, Simmons dropped from 268 to 112 pounds through a breakneck regimen of pills, hypnosis, bulimia and extreme fasting. His hair fell out. He spent $13,000 to tighten the loose skin on his face. While recovering in the hospital, he read books on nutrition and saw his path forward: He would be the buoyant champion of the overweight, and he would show people how to become and remain fit without ruining their mood or health. He returned to the states in 1971 and became a maitre d’ at a posh L.A. restaurant. “I saw the rich eat,” Simmons told Los Angeles magazine later. “I saw them drink. I saw them fall down in stupors. I realized they had bad breath. I saw marriages fall apart. I saw divorce. I saw accidents. I saw careers in Hollywood tumble. I said, ‘Wait a minute. This is self-destruction time. I can’t be like this.’ ” In 1975, he opened a health-food restaurant in Beverly Hills named Ruffage, with an adjoining fitness studio. The clientele included Paul Newman, Diana Ross and Barbra Streisand. He would run at fat customers and chant, “Thighs, thighs, go away, give them all to Doris Day!” Until 1978, Simmons wore all black, all the time. “I was in mourning,” he told The Washington Post in 1981, “for the fat people of America.” Simmons is a gaudy rhinestone embedded in American culture: a true original whose commercial sorcery summoned the forces of positive thinking and negative self-imaging. He cast his spell using old-fashioned vaudeville techniques that he must’ve inherited. Watch his low-impact aerobics on YouTube and see a retro antidote to the bleeding palms of generation CrossFit. America hasn’t had much use for Richard Simmons over the past 20 years, but the 20 years prior saw a remarkable run.'

Tags: done , Richard Simmons , transgender , male to female , Richard Simmons Male to Female Transgender! , The ‘National Enquirer’ Says Richard Simmons is ‘Now a Woman’

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