8 months ago
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Richard Simmons sent the interwebs into a frenzy on Monday when he tweeted that he was dying. You see, the public mistakenly took that to mean… that he was dying. But he’s not! Well, he is, in the sense that “we all are dying,” as he further said in his post. But the point is he is not presently dying. He just wanted to inspire us all to seize the day and take care of our health. And he never meant to cause upset or confusion by posting a nuanced message on Twitter that could have ambiguous interpretations. Are we clear now?
Richard Simmons got social media users working up a sweat.
The beloved fitness personality — who rose to fame in the 1970s and ‘80s thanks to his eccentric and energetic personality and his accessible at-home “Sweatin’ to the Oldies” line of aerobics videos — posted a cryptic message Monday on X, formerly Twitter, that confused and concerned a lot of users.
“I have some news to tell you. Please don’t be sad. I am …dying,” Simmons began his post. “Oh I can see your faces now. The truth is we all are dying. Every day we live we are getting closer to our death. Why am I telling you this?”
Although some wrote off the post as just a joke — especially since Simmons followed up that tweet with a thread of health tips — its wording never specifies whether Simmons is just trying to make light of the fleetingness of life or an actual life-threatening diagnosis.
It was especially bewildering because Richards has been reclusive from public life since 2014, as was pointed out in Dan Taberski’s popular 2017 podcast, “Missing Richard Simmons.”
The tweet even seemed to confuse media outlets that reached out to Simmons’ reps to verify whether or not the 75-year-old aerobics instructor was in good health.
The tweet seemed to cause such a fiasco that hours later, Simmons tweeted a clarification.
“Sorry many of you have gotten upset about my message today. Even the press has gotten in touch with me,” Simmons wrote. “I am not dying. It was a message about saying how we should embrace every day that we have. Sorry for this confusion.”
Tom Estey, a spokesman for Simmons, clarified to CNN that Simmons is fine.
“I can confirm with one hundred percent certainty that Richard is not dying,” Estey told CNN. “He’s, in fact, very healthy and happy. The sole purpose of the post was meant to be inspirational.”
To be fair to Richard, a quick perusal of his Twitter shows that he routinely posts inspirationally-styled messages. So his explanation about Monday’s tweet makes sense when taken in the context of all his be-good-to-yourself tweets. Furthermore, Richard has been mainly a private person for the past 10 years. He doesn’t want the spotlight these days. He just wants to drop into people’s feeds here and there to remind everyone to give themselves a hug, or relay the all-plot, no-drama story of how he bought his first Barbra Streisand record. With this particular tweet, Richard’s words and tone didn’t make sense on the platform the way they did in his head. And then Twitter did what Twitter does. I hope Richard dusts off his spandex and keeps sharing his somewhat random yet overall positive anecdotes.
All that said, did I miss a horoscope reading foretelling that Monday March 18 would be a day to fact check death announcements? Cause that sounds more like some Ides of March sh*t to me! The day began with King Charles III being cast out by a (likely) Russian disinformation campaign, and then Fitness King Richard the First fell on the sword (of his own words). I’m dubbing it the Ides of Twitter. Beware!!
photos credit: Getty and Optic Photos, PacificCoastNews / Avalon, Dominic Chan / Wenn / Avalon
