Teresa Reveles, who worked for Richard Simmons for three decades, says the fitness icon hid in plain sight when he did leave home in the years he had vanished from public life. In a new ABC special with Diane Sawyer, Reveles says Simmons would disguise himself before going out, sometimes as a clown and sometimes as a woman, so nobody knew it was him.
"He'd do all the very different costumes," Reveles says in the interview. "Sometimes he'd be a clown. Sometimes he'd be a woman." She says she would later take him around the city so they could see new buildings and new stores, adding, "Nobody knows [it] was him. And then later he go -- we go in the car and -- I take him all the city so we can see the new buildings, the new store."
Reveles was the last person to see Simmons alive before he died on July 11, 2024, at age 76. Diane Sawyer said Monday on Good Morning America that Reveles has been very protective of Simmons and has not spoken about what went on in his home in the days leading up to his death. Sawyer also said Simmons reached out directly to her after 10 years of silence, sending flowers with a note that read, "I trust you."
That note now sits at the center of a special that is meant to explain both Simmons' disappearance from public life and the end of his life. His death was ruled accidental, and a family spokesperson said complications from prior falls and heart disease were contributing factors. The program will also include interviews with his brother Lenny Simmons and sister-in-law Cathy Simmons, giving the story a family frame as well as a public one.
The last major question is not whether Simmons wanted to step back; it is how much of his final chapter can still be told by the people who were closest to him. The Mystery of Richard Simmons: A Diane Sawyer Special is scheduled to air Tuesday, May 12, at 9 p.m. ET on ABC and will stream the next day on Disney+ and Hulu.
