Richard Simmons Gives Rare Update on His 75th Birthday

Fitness guru Richard Simmons provided a rare update to fans to ring in his 75th birthday this week, nearly a decade after disappearing from he public eye.

“This is a big milestone. I just want to see him happy, which he is,” his longtime rep, Tom Estey, told Entertainment Tonight on Wednesday.

Previously, a friend gave a similar update on Simmons’ 70th birthday back in 2018.

“He’s doing very well. He’s his jovial self. He spends most of his time at home and in his yard,” the friend said at the time. “He keeps up with his reading and does what he wants to do. He deserves this time to himself. Seventy years is a milestone but he doesn’t look at it that way.”

Simmons famously disappeared from the public in 2014 when he suddenly stopped teaching at his Slimmons fitness studio, which later quietly closed in 2016 without comment. That same year, the Sweatin’ to the Oldies founder called into the Today show to refute wild claims that his housekeeper was holding him hostage.

“I just sort of wanted to be a little bit of a loner for a little while,” he told the morning show. “You know, I had hurt my knee, and I had some problems with it, and then the other knee started giving me trouble because I’ve taught like thousands and thousands of classes, and you know right now I just want to sort of take care of me.”

That was the last anyone had personally heard from Simmons until August 2022, when he commented through his rep following the release of a TMZ documentary into his public disappearance. (He was likewise the subject of a 2017 podcast, Missing Richard Simmons, which investigated why he left public life so suddenly.)

“Richard is eternally grateful for the continuous outpouring of love and gratitude he has received from across the Globe,” Estey told the New York Post. “He is happy, healthy and living the life he has chosen to live.”

Wherever Simmons is, fans continue to wish him well, and perhaps we’ll catch him again once 80 rolls around.