Talk:Richard Simmons/Archive 3

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TMZ Reports Richard Simmons Has Passed Away

TMZ reports he has passed away.

Richard Simmons Dead at 76 https://www.tmz.com/2024/07/13/richard-simmons-dead-dies-fintess-guru/ Atomic Scorch (talk) 20:25, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

They've broken a lot of celebrity deaths, and apparently have people who tip them off. We'll wait until a proper news source reports it as well, as I've only seen the Daily Mail cover it. Harizotoh9 (talk) 20:51, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Agreed and that's why I didn't update it just yet. However, now local news organizations are reporting that his representative has confirmed his passing. Atomic Scorch (talk) 20:53, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

ABC and affiliates are reporting it, and giving more details. We'll get more in depth coverage later today. Looks like natural causes. Harizotoh9 (talk) 21:17, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

According to TMZ, he died from complications due to a fall in his bathroom. 2601:18C:9083:A9D0:EC1E:2D91:A9BB:8E9B (talk) 22:04, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Lead

Any particular reason the lead is so short given the proportional length of the article? Viriditas (talk) 00:27, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Who cares how many days it's been since his birthday?

Why do editors feel the need to mentioned he died close to his birthday? This is incredibly unimportant information. LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contributions)} 21:39, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Not necessarily. The topic of nearness of death date to birthdate and other dates of personal importance has been a subject of considerable conjecture over the decades. MaynardClark (talk) 15:46, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Claimed to be vegetarian

Richard Simmons claimed to be vegetarian. Based ENTIRELY upon his own statement(s) about this (if we COULD do this), the burden of proof should be on 'denialists' to exclude this claim from this article.

The sources you have cited are generally not reliable, they would not pass WP:RS. The Washington Post have a professional obituary and it does not mention him being a vegetarian [1]. If we go by his own cookbooks, interviews, and videos he wasn't a vegetarian as he ate chicken, fish and pork. Here he is cooking and eating it on his own YouTube channel [2] [3], [4]. His cookbooks also contain many animal-based foods. For example he talks about liver pate here in one of his books [5]. Here he is promoting a chicken and salad recipe with "fresh chunks of chicken" [6]. Psychologist Guy (talk) 00:54, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

No doubt, they are sources that say that Richard Simmons said that he was vegetarian. The digital and printed evidence - cookbooks, YouTube and other videos, are clear evidence that he was not TEACHING vegetarianism. He should not be included in the WikiProject for veganism and vegetarianism, despite his verbal and/or printed claims (though evidently erroneous). But IMO they are 'evidence' that Simmons stated (though erroneously) that he was vegetarian - yet another instance of modern disinformation. MaynardClark (talk) 01:16, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

I have checked Simmons' public Facebook page - if you go back to 2022 he was still eating chicken. If he did become a vegetarian it was in the last year or few months of his life. He definitely had no involvement with vegetarianism throughout the majority of his life as he was cooking and eating meat for decades. I have never seen him promote vegetarianism. The websites you cite all trace back to this source [7] for a quote for People (magazine) in July 2024, where he said “You know, I'm a vegetarian.” Unfortunately he gives no details about this, maybe you could enquire about it. If he became a vegetarian a few months before he died, this is not significant. It is notable and significant if someone was vegetarian for 10, 20, 30 or 40 years and we have good sources, but that is obviously not the case with Simmons. I am not convinced such trivial information is warranted for inclusion on the article. I agree that it is also possible that he was mistaken in claiming he was vegetarian. Based on what I have read he was in a bad state of mind for the last few months before his death. He wrote a lot of odd stuff on Facebook, he sounded very confused about life. Psychologist Guy (talk) 01:53, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

References