Richard Simmons once again politely asks the world (and Pauly Shore) to leave him the hell alone
Simmons has disavowed any involvement in, or permission for, Pauly Shore's new biopic about his life
Earlier today, news broke that a subsidiary of Warner Bros. had put into development a new biopic of former fitness star Richard Simmons, starring comedian Pauly Shore—largely, as far as we can tell, on the strength of people making memes over the last few years noting that the two men have a mild physical resemblance, followed by Shore noticing said memes, followed by him saying “Sure, fuck it, work is work.”
Somewhat surprisingly—given his famed disconnect from the wider pop culture world—it took Simmons himself very little time to notice this project being cooked up, and to issue a rare statement disavowing all knowledge of, or support for, the film. “Hi Everybody!” he wrote on Facebook, per Deadline. “You may have heard they may be doing a movie about me with Pauly Shore. I have never given my permission for this movie. So don’t believe everything you read. I no longer have a manager, and I no longer have a publicist. I just try to live a quiet life and be peaceful. Thank you for all your love and support.”
Simmons has long been the subject of online fascination over his general retreat from the limelight circa 2014, including spawning the podcast Missing Richard Simmons, the show that dared to ask: Why isn’t it our business when a person decides to no longer be famous, huh? Despite all the speculation, Simmon appears to simply be living a quiet life after years of intense attention, scrutiny, and, let’s be honest, mockery, in a way that clearly doesn’t need Pauly Shore wandering into it, trying to get his personal career resurrection out of portraying the poor man’s life.
Which might already be too late: Shore has already played Simmons in a short film, The Court Jester, which is set to air at the Sundance Film Festival later this week. For his part, Shore has said he’s been playing “phone tag” with the former fitness guru, adding that he’s “really excited about sharing Richard Simmons’s life with the world” and that “we all need this biopic now more than ever.” Shore is working on the film with Mark Wolper of The Wolper Organization, a Warner Bros. subsidiary, who told press “we are in serious discussions with a major writer to develop this as a dramatic and heartfelt feature in the tone of Little Miss Sunshine.”