ODRO
Richard Simmons’ longtime housekeeper believes the late fitness guru died from a heart attack — though his official cause of death remains under investigation.
Teresa Reveles discovered Simmons’ body the morning after his 76th birthday and noticed his hands were balled into fists.
“That’s why I know it was heart attack,” she told People magazine in an interview published Monday. “I had a heart attack a few years ago, and my hands did the same.”
Reveles added that her boss looked “peaceful” and she believed he “died happy.”
Though Simmons’ autopsy has been completed, the results are pending toxicology test results.
Dubbing herself his “companion,” Reveles joined Simmons’ household in 1986 and spent the rest of his life with him together, which she said Simmons had predicted decades ago.
“’Teresa, come in, you are never going to leave. We are going to be together until I die,’” she recalled Simmons telling her.
“And you know what? His dream came true,” she told the publication. “He knew somehow.”
Reveles also confirmed a report that claimed the exercise personality fell in his bathroom on his birthday but refused medical help because he didn’t want to spend the special day in the hospital.
“’Why don’t we wait and we do it in the morning,’” Simmons told her.
“But in the morning, it was too late,” she said of his untimely demise.
A private funeral for Simmons’ closest family and friends was held in Los Angeles one week after he died.
The weight-loss advocate’s brother, Lenny, asked Richard’s fans to “remember him for the genuine joy and love he brought to people’s lives,” going on to say that Richard “truly cared about people,” as “he called, wrote and emailed thousands of people throughout his career to offer help.”
Lenny urged, “So don’t be sad. Celebrate his life.”
