Hold onto your sweatbands, because the legend of leg warmers and jazz hands, Richard Simmons, has shuffled off this mortal coil, and his housekeeper of 35 years, Teresa Reveles, has some tales to tell. Buckle up for a journey that started in the 1980s and ended with a heavy heart—and fists.
Let’s rewind to the glory days of neon spandex and aerobics. Teresa sashayed into Richard’s life in 1986 with a tiny suitcase and a big question mark over her future. Richard, being the ball of energy and fabulousness we all knew, took one look at her minimalist luggage and thought, “Is that all you’ve got?” Teresa, ever the practical one, replied, “Hey, I’m on a trial run here. If you hate my cooking or my face, I’m outta here in two weeks.” Richard, in his crystal-ball wisdom, declared, “Teresa, darling, you’re never leaving. We’re stuck like glue until the end.”
And wouldn’t you know it? The man had a sixth sense.
Fast forward to the present, and Teresa is still reeling from discovering Richard in his final resting pose. “He looked peaceful,” she reminisced, adding that his hands were clenched like he’d just finished a killer set of push-ups. “That’s how I knew it was a heart attack,” she explained. “My hands did the same when I had one, and trust me, it’s not from too many curls.”
Teresa also shed some light on why Richard, the human glitter ball, vanished from the spotlight in his later years. Picture this: Richard, usually bouncing around like a human pogo stick, suddenly couldn’t exercise or teach his beloved classes. “Teresa, my knees hurt!” he’d complain. A knee replacement sidelined him from all the jumping and jazzercising. The thought of not being his usual flamboyant self was unbearable. “If I can’t be Richard,” he declared, “I’m hanging up my headbands.”
And as if that wasn’t enough, Richard, like many of us, wasn’t thrilled with the aging process. “He thought he looked too old,” Teresa revealed. “But honestly, he was still Richard—maybe a few more wrinkles, a smidge less hair, but the same spirit. Okay, maybe not as slim, but who’s counting?”
So, let’s all raise a glass of our finest green smoothie to Richard Simmons, the man who made sweating look glamorous and whose legacy will continue to sparkle—fists clenched and all.
