Why everyone is obsessed with a fitness podcast about Richard Simmons
Pin ItIf you instinctively grabbed your smartphone this morning to get your fix of Missing Richard Simmons only to remember, heartbroken, that the hit podcast is over, do not despair.
I don’t have a secret bonus episode, nor have I located the elusive, eccentric aerobics legend in some rhinestone-studded safe house. But as a historian of American fitness culture, I do have some thoughts on why the podcast—six episodes of sweaty, if not salacious, stories that tell us nothing about how to get thin thighs or flat abs—went viral, and what our particular fascination with Simmons says about our relationship to the gym today.
The tale of the missing gym hero is so gripping, I think, because the figure of the #fitpro that we know, love, and follow today wouldn’t exist without Richard Simmons.
ICYMI: In Missing Richard Simmons, former producer of The Daily Show Dan Taberski searches for the Sweatin’ to the Oldies superstar, whose abrupt 2014 exit from the spotlight he had relentlessly sought since the 1960s had millions of fans wondering about a nervous breakdown, elder abuse, or even abduction.
Spoiler alert: Taberski never finds Simmons, who had been his instructor and acquaintance. (The podcaster called off the manhunt after the LAPD did a welfare check and reported that Simmons was “fine.”) But he takes listeners on a tour through the sweaty, sequined subculture that made Simmons a celebrity, from New Orleans, where he was born Milton Teagle Simmons in 1948, an era when “exercise” might mean hitting the slenderizing salon in heels, to his Los Angeles studio, Slimmons. Comparisons to the addictive Serial podcast came fast and furious:
Missing Richard Simmons #podcast is the best thing on…
