The world was taken back to hear that none other than Pauly Shore was readying a feature film about the life of outlandish fitness guru Richard Simmons, which is currently being developed by a Hollywood production company.
Even disregarding the casting of the title role, Simmons is a surprising choice of subject for a movie — if for no other reason that Simmons, long one of the loudest celebrities in the country, suddenly and still without much explanation retreated from public life about a decade ago. He closed his gym, Slimmons, stopped making public appearances, and basically went into seclusion. (Simmons’ retirement was so mysterious someone made a whole podcast devoted to figuring out what happened to him, Missing Richard Simmons.)
I suppose that doesn’t necessarily preclude Simmons from giving the go-ahead to a movie about his life, but it would be out of character for him, at least in the last decade. And sure enough, after news of Shore’s biopic was announced, Simmons made a rare public statement to his Facebook page — his first in over a year — revealing he had “never given my permission for this movie.”
“I no longer have a manager, and I no longer have a publicist,” Simmons added. “I just try to live a quiet life and be peaceful. Thank you for all your love and support.”
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“Richard Simmons” and “quiet life” feels like an oxymoron, right?
Regardless, after Simmons publicly rejected the idea that he had anything to do with the movie, the production company behind the Simmons biopic released a statement that read: “While we would love to have [Simmons] involved, we respect his desire to privacy and plan to produce a movie that honors him, celebrates him and tells a dramatic story.”
Shore can also be seen playing Richard Simmons in a new short film called “The Court Jester” which is set to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. Here is a teaser for the film. He does kind of look like Richard Simmons, I guess?
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