Famous for being famously healthy, Richard Simmons risks losing his shine with news that he was hospitalized for “severe indigestion.”
The fitness icon was “hospitalized on Monday at an undisclosed location in California,” said his spokesman Michael Catalano. “After a few days of battling severe indigestion and discomfort while eating, we agreed it was best for him to seek treatment.”
Now 68, Simmons has become an object of fascination in the wake of the podcast “Missing Richard Simmons.”
But Simmons was coming out of his shell, and signed a business deal for “merchandising, endorsements and licensing opportunities,” Catalano said this month.
Catalano told ABC News on April 6 that Simmons pursued the deal.
“Catalano commented on his client’s relatively low profile, telling ABC News that Simmons just wants a break from fame. Catalano’s comments echo what Simmons told ‘Entertainment Tonight’ last year.” ABC News said.
The New York Daily News quoted Mauro Oliviera, Simmons’ former masseur and assistant, as saying: “I feel that Richard is now being controlled by the very people that he controlled his whole life. Controlled in the sense that they are taking advantage of his weak mental state. Controlled in the sense that they are controlling his mail, controlling his everything. His brother, the manager and Teresa. Those three people.”
Now it appears Simmons is controlled by the male version of that TV commercial figure Irritabelle — the lady representing a stomach ache with diarrhea — in ads for Viberzi.