WEBVTT - Dan Taberski: Missing Richard Simmons Recap 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:09.920 If you're like me, you probably listened to, or perhaps 0:00:10.000 --> 0:00:15.080 we're obsessed with the Missing Richard Simmons podcast. The host 0:00:15.160 --> 0:00:18.960 and creator Dan to Birsky, spent a few years trying 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:22.560 to find out why Richard Simmons abruptly cut himself off 0:00:22.600 --> 0:00:26.279 from his adoring fans and so many good friends he 0:00:26.360 --> 0:00:30.320 made along the way. So over the course of this series, 0:00:30.680 --> 0:00:33.640 I'm looking for Richard. I'm reaching out in any way 0:00:33.640 --> 0:00:37.519 I can and exploring every theory. The goal isn't to 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:40.440 drag him back. It's to find out why someone like 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:45.199 him would ditch the world. This is Missing Richard Simmons. 0:00:48.600 --> 0:00:52.080 Dan visited Richard's brother in New Orleans. He pretty much 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:55.840 talked to everyone who knew Richard at some point in 0:00:55.880 --> 0:00:59.800 their lives. Richard Simmons hasn't been seen in public for 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:04.039 over three years. I was particularly interested in this podcast 0:01:04.160 --> 0:01:08.040 because I had interviewed Richard several times in the past, 0:01:08.840 --> 0:01:11.600 and I too was worried about him. And I have 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:14.160 to be honest, listening to this made me fall in 0:01:14.200 --> 0:01:17.200 love with Richard Simmons all over again. And I'm not 0:01:17.280 --> 0:01:20.680 the only one. This podcast has been a huge hit. 0:01:21.080 --> 0:01:24.800 It was the number one most downloaded podcast on iTunes. 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:28.000 But now that the show was over all six episodes, 0:01:28.520 --> 0:01:31.640 there are still a lot of questions. I guess the 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:36.240 primary one is why did Richard become a recluse? But 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:40.000 there are also people who are questioning Dan's decision to 0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:44.000 make this podcast and the ethics of doing so. In fact, 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:47.880 the New York Times even called it quote unquote morally suspect. 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:51.160 So I sat down with Dan to talk about why 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:54.240 he wanted to do this, what his experience was like, 0:01:54.760 --> 0:02:01.120 and his reaction to all the criticism. Dan to Bersky, 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:04.480 is so nice to see you. Dan. So how are 0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:09.160 you feeling now that everything is done? I can't imagine 0:02:09.400 --> 0:02:12.920 the wild ride you've been on. It was a wild 0:02:13.040 --> 0:02:16.240 ride and it was, um it still is, I guess 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:19.560 a little bit. Um. I'm I am super pleased that 0:02:19.600 --> 0:02:21.600 it's done, just because until it's done, you don't know 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:24.000 how it's going to turn out, quality wise, and I'm 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:27.160 super happy with how it turned out. Um, but it 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:28.960 was a lot. It was a lot of It started 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:31.639 out just like we watched a creep up the iTunes 0:02:31.720 --> 0:02:34.280 start and then people your phone start ringing, and then 0:02:34.440 --> 0:02:38.639 it is an avalanche. Uh, and it struck a chord, 0:02:38.680 --> 0:02:41.120 which is so lovely. I'm super excited about that. So 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:44.480 it was a little overwhelming, And of course it's been controversial. 0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:47.200 There's been a lot of criticism of the podcast, and 0:02:47.200 --> 0:02:50.280 we'll talk about that later, but I want to talk 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:53.000 about this as a medium, if you will. You're a 0:02:53.160 --> 0:02:57.520 documentary filmmaker. You did a film called These cock Sucking Tears, 0:02:57.560 --> 0:02:59.360 and I wanted to say that because I thought people 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:02.440 would enjoy hearing me say the title of your film. 0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:07.440 I wanted And you also obviously worked in television a 0:03:07.520 --> 0:03:10.680 producer at The Daily Show, So what made you decide 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:13.880 to do a podcast instead of a TV show. It 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:18.919 was an unusual story, and I was sort of following 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:21.720 it as it was happening, and I was doing it 0:03:21.720 --> 0:03:23.720 as a documentary. I started shooting it as a documentary. 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:25.880 I was shooting video and I actually started on my iPhone. 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:28.480 I was literally like I had the whole rig and like, yeah, 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:30.960 I was doing it all myself. And I think part 0:03:31.040 --> 0:03:33.680 of that is just like it needs to reach critical mass, 0:03:33.720 --> 0:03:35.720 like you just got. You think it would have been 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:39.800 successful as a film. As a documentary, I'm really glad 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:42.920 it wasn't a documentary, because what happens to the documentary 0:03:42.960 --> 0:03:44.120 is that you finished it and then there's like a 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:47.640 year until it comes out. I also think it would 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:51.520 have I think oddly just the audio. Just having audio 0:03:51.560 --> 0:03:54.480 only is more intimate, even though you're missing a sense. 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:58.920 But I actually think having the visuals as well might 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:02.520 have made it fee you a little more invasive and 0:04:02.560 --> 0:04:03.960 not in a good way. Like it's just and a 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:05.680 lot of people are uncomfortable with their bodies that I'm 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:08.280 talking to, and you know, it just adds another element 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:10.520 of do I really want to pour my heart out 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:13.800 to you? And were you influenced by any other podcasts? 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:16.359 For example? Were you a big fan of Sereal? Is 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:19.800 that one of the things that made you gravitate towards this? Um? 0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:22.239 I was influenced by serial and just that I really 0:04:22.279 --> 0:04:24.640 liked it. UM. I will say I don't have a 0:04:24.640 --> 0:04:27.880 particular love of like mystery, like I don't love true crime. 0:04:28.440 --> 0:04:30.359 That was a big part of this, not true crime, 0:04:30.440 --> 0:04:33.600 but the mystery element. Yeah, and and part of but 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:36.839 also part of that was me figuring out how to 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:39.479 do that part and sometimes in the podcast with my 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:41.760 producer Henry, like, I don't know if it comes through 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:43.880 in the podcast. But sometimes you know, and especially the 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:45.800 people at pine Stream Media, they were pushing me to 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:49.200 do things due diligence. You have to do the basics. 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:50.880 You have to reach out this way and that way, 0:04:50.880 --> 0:04:53.800 and those are the things that made me uncomfortable, but 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:55.600 that still needed to be done. Like the sort of 0:04:55.640 --> 0:04:58.440 mystery solving parts were not my favorite part. The favorite 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:01.720 parts we're talking about Richard and the impact he had. 0:05:02.120 --> 0:05:04.039 What kinds of things do they make you do that 0:05:04.160 --> 0:05:09.599 made you uncomfortable, Katy? I mean you opened that door, Dan, No, 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:14.320 not anything I'm uncomfortable to. You know, this sounds absurd, 0:05:14.360 --> 0:05:17.120 but sometimes I'm just uncomfortable to talk to people. And 0:05:17.160 --> 0:05:19.000 so things like you know, just going and knocking on 0:05:19.080 --> 0:05:21.480 Richard's door, like that was something I needed to do. 0:05:21.560 --> 0:05:23.159 I needed to reach out to Richard and just do 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:24.960 the basics, like if he answered the door and he's like, 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:27.400 hey man, come on in, Like there goes a podcast. 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:30.320 But I needed to know those things. Let's peek behind 0:05:30.360 --> 0:05:33.800 the curtains. Tell us how much traveling you did, the 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:37.640 reporting that you did before the episode started to air, 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:40.880 how this was done in real time? Can you just 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:43.520 tell us a little bit about your process feel like 0:05:43.560 --> 0:05:48.359 I'm interviewing Martin Scorsese. Somehow I appreciate the comparison. I 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:55.080 don't get carried away totally the other way. No, I 0:05:55.120 --> 0:05:57.240 didn't mean that, but I just, you know, I want 0:05:57.279 --> 0:05:59.320 you to get too big for your bridges. As my 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:01.760 mom would say, it will not happen. My bridges are 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:06.120 just fine. The process was, um, it was a long one. 0:06:06.120 --> 0:06:08.920 I mean I had originally met Richard in two thousand twelve, 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:11.000 and I wanted to do a documentary on him from 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:13.080 the beginning. Uh, And so that was our process of 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:15.080 getting to know each other was you know, we were 0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:16.760 getting to know each other, but there was also you know, 0:06:16.760 --> 0:06:18.560 there was another level of like do I trust you 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:22.080 to tell my story? So that started in two thousand twelve. 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:25.320 He disappeared in two thousand thirteen, and then about a 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:28.360 year later, I kind of realized that everybody was sort 0:06:28.360 --> 0:06:30.320 of wondering what is going on? And there were no 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:33.600 easy answers, and a lot of people were really worried, um, 0:06:34.200 --> 0:06:38.040 sincerely worried. Um. What did he say when you approached 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:43.320 him about a documentary? He said no? Wink, he said, 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:45.400 he said no. And then but he said it with 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:47.560 a smile, and we kept talking and I that was 0:06:47.600 --> 0:06:49.040 the first day I took his class, and I said, 0:06:49.080 --> 0:06:50.920 all right, I'll just keep going to class. And so 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:53.440 I did you bring it up again? Uh? Not for 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:56.480 a while. Um. And then maybe six months later I 0:06:56.520 --> 0:06:58.800 kind of raised it again and then what did he say? 0:06:59.040 --> 0:07:01.680 He said, I don't remember exactly what I said, but 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:03.440 it was like a slow process of he sort of 0:07:03.480 --> 0:07:05.920 invited me to come to behind the scenes of one 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:08.480 of the tapings of his videos. Um. And then he 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:10.520 sort of invited me to lunch where we could talk 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:13.560 about it just that without like the class or anything 0:07:13.560 --> 0:07:16.440 else distracting us. So you felt like you were making 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:21.880 some progress in achieving your goal of producing a documentary. Sure, yeah, yeah, 0:07:22.040 --> 0:07:26.520 for sure. And then no, uh, we we actually started 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:30.880 doing negotiating a deal um about which gets complicated about 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:33.480 life rights and stuff like that, and house it's gonna work. Um. 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:38.680 And then sort of an early fall of two thousand thirteen, Um, 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:41.280 he I moved back to New York, uh, and he 0:07:41.320 --> 0:07:43.120 put it on hold. And then a couple months later 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:44.800 he had disappeared, but we were still in touch and 0:07:44.800 --> 0:07:47.680 still talking. He just wasn't quite ready, um, but then 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:54.360 he the disappeared quite literally. But you really thought it 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:56.440 was all systems go, that the two of you were 0:07:56.480 --> 0:07:59.000 going to make a documentary together. I thought, no, I 0:07:59.000 --> 0:08:01.040 thought we had hit a we hit a pause button, 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:04.760 which is totally fine, but oh yeah, yeah, yeah, we 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:07.640 were for sure like it was a we were doing it, 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:09.880 like you told people in the class, and like you 0:08:09.920 --> 0:08:12.040 said it out loud and we talked. Yet for sure 0:08:12.040 --> 0:08:15.680 it was happening. You also traveled extensively, went to New 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:20.800 Orleans and showed up outside his brother's house there you, 0:08:21.320 --> 0:08:23.920 as you mentioned, went to Richard's house in l A. 0:08:24.240 --> 0:08:26.200 How much traveling did you have to do for this? 0:08:26.440 --> 0:08:28.040 I would say, I mean I went to we went 0:08:28.040 --> 0:08:30.560 to New Orleans, and we went to Mississippi, and then 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:33.080 I went to l A about five or six times. 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:35.280 I mean I was out there, I would say for 0:08:35.360 --> 0:08:38.240 four weeks altogether for this, which, gosh, I guess that's 0:08:38.280 --> 0:08:42.200 a lot. You set boundaries for yourself, Dan, You did 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:46.400 you going into this say I won't do A, B 0:08:46.640 --> 0:08:51.080 and C. Or did those boundaries evolve as the project 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:57.480 went on? The boundaries definitely did not evolve. Um, I 0:08:57.480 --> 0:08:59.600 would say, I mean I don't consider myself a journalist. 0:08:59.600 --> 0:09:02.319 I consider myself a documentarian, which are very similar rules, 0:09:02.360 --> 0:09:04.760 but documentarians is a little more artful. You're trying, you're 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:07.280 you're allowed to be a little looser, not with the facts, 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:11.000 but with how you're expressing things. Um. But also the 0:09:11.040 --> 0:09:14.000 easier rule was just like I consider him a friend 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:15.240 of mine, and what would you do to a friend 0:09:15.240 --> 0:09:18.720 of yours? Like that became not pretending like I wasn't 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:22.400 out to get this guy. I wasn't out too upset him. 0:09:22.280 --> 0:09:25.640 I wasn't out to expose anything. So just saying like, 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:27.600 you know what, like I'm not doing that. He's like, 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:29.520 I consider him my friend. He wouldn't want that, Like 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:32.760 that was kind of an easy line. So how did 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:37.080 you figure out which lines you wouldn't cross? Whichever one's 0:09:37.120 --> 0:09:40.520 made me nauseous? It's a it's a I only I'm 0:09:40.520 --> 0:09:43.520 only half kidding, Like if I really just don't feel right, 0:09:43.600 --> 0:09:45.560 I'm just like I don't want to do that, Like 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:48.880 I have to decide if it's um, if it's just nerves, 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:51.760 or if it's really like now, there's something wrong with that. 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:54.400 Like in the past three years, I've been outside of 0:09:54.480 --> 0:09:56.719 Richard's house maybe a total ten minutes, like you know 0:09:56.720 --> 0:09:58.240 what I mean, Like a lot of the things that 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:01.840 people think, oh, you crossed boundaries, Like in fact, people 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:03.720 just think we cross boundary because we're showing them what 0:10:03.720 --> 0:10:05.839 we were doing, like we were quite honest. Like I'm 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:07.920 gonna go knock on the door now, because that's basic. 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:10.680 You gotta do it if you're looking for somebody whereas 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:13.200 another journalist or a television crew, like they'll be camped 0:10:13.240 --> 0:10:15.760 out for days and like, but you don't see that part. 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:18.960 Still for some reason, it feels less intrusive. But in fact, 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:23.439 like I hardly I didn't make any contact with him 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:25.199 hard I talked to his manager a couple of times. 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:28.200 Like it was just on the peripheries. If you had 0:10:28.240 --> 0:10:31.200 to do it over again, would you do anything differently? 0:10:36.800 --> 0:10:42.439 Um No, I'm not saying I didn't make mistakes. I 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:44.360 think I did make mistakes, although most of the mistakes 0:10:44.360 --> 0:10:49.040 people people probably didn't pick up on. Like if um, 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:52.440 I'm really proud of it. Um, I'm really proud of it. 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:54.880 You can be proud of it, but also maybe think 0:10:55.200 --> 0:10:58.000 regret a few things in it. Um, I wish I 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:01.840 was more prepared to understand that if people started listening 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:05.240 to that would change it, that that would change that, 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:08.040 that would change what was happening. Like the first I 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:11.480 think what happened is that people were really on board 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:13.800 and they were like, oh my gosh, Richard Simms is amazing. 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:15.400 And I don't think it's exaggerating to say that I 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:17.960 did remind people that Richard Sims is amazing, and I 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:20.319 do think he has really become one dimensional in the 0:11:20.360 --> 0:11:22.839 past ten twenty years, and that part of the fun 0:11:22.880 --> 0:11:24.760 of this was just saying you don't understand, like he's 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:27.080 this businessman and he's helping all these people and all 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:30.880 these dimensions. Part of it was really like any biography 0:11:30.920 --> 0:11:33.440 in a way. Yeah, But once people realized that it 0:11:33.480 --> 0:11:35.320 wasn't just the guy that Letterman was making fun of 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:38.240 in short shorts, then people were like, Richard's amazing, and 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:41.480 they're like, wait a minute, leave rich Or alone. So 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:44.320 I kind of put myself into a trap again that 0:11:44.400 --> 0:11:47.680 we weren't doing anything that was actually there was nothing 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:49.320 in truth about what we were doing. But I think 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:51.280 that more people got to know Richard, the more they 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:54.320 felt like they knew him. That got into your head, though, 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:56.640 But the fact that you were doing this in real 0:11:56.760 --> 0:12:00.679 time sort of some of the backlash again into the show. 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:05.720 How did it influence sort of the latter episodes. The 0:12:05.760 --> 0:12:10.199 stress level went up, like way up, like intensely up 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:12.520 for me. But that I do that to myself, um 0:12:12.679 --> 0:12:14.679 as as I think you know a lot of directors, 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:17.640 producers or anybody would do describe how that felt when 0:12:17.800 --> 0:12:21.360 people started saying, hey, wait a minute. Um, it's not. 0:12:21.480 --> 0:12:23.640 It's not just that hey wait a minute is fine 0:12:23.640 --> 0:12:26.720 because they weren't. Nobody out there has asked anything that 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:29.280 we haven't been asking ourselves for the past three years. 0:12:29.280 --> 0:12:31.920 And I think that's what that like. We went eyes 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:34.360 wide open, like I have never worked on a project 0:12:34.400 --> 0:12:38.280 for this long, so considerately. Um. I don't mean as 0:12:38.280 --> 0:12:40.120 a complent. I just mean, like the sheer time and 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:41.640 do deal, gents, we did to make sure that we 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:46.160 were doing things away that we thought were was right. Um. 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:50.240 So it's more about the criticism, a little bit of criticism, 0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:54.760 plus people really waiting for the next episode, plus people 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:58.079 who know Richard wanting to know what's going on, plus 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:00.840 knowing that Richard's out there and wondering what he's thinking, 0:13:01.400 --> 0:13:05.120 plus just sheer time, Like you start to run out 0:13:05.120 --> 0:13:08.920 of time. UM. So all that sort of coalesces into 0:13:09.000 --> 0:13:11.680 nothing new, nothing that I'm sure you or a million 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:15.160 other people haven't experienced times ten. But you know, for me, 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:18.040 this time it was me. So it's serious and it 0:13:18.120 --> 0:13:21.079 was a new phenomenon for you. Yeah, I had never 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:22.760 had you know, I had I had a kids show 0:13:22.840 --> 0:13:25.440 like uh five years ago in Cartoon Network that was 0:13:25.440 --> 0:13:26.800 a really big hit, but it was a big hit 0:13:26.840 --> 0:13:29.000 with kids, and so like nobody knew what I was doing, 0:13:29.080 --> 0:13:30.840 Like if a twelve year old came up to me, 0:13:30.920 --> 0:13:34.200 I was the rock star, but it was really under 0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:36.840 the radar with adults. UM. And there was something really 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:41.120 um pressureless about that UM. But this was the first 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:43.440 time where I did something you know that I was 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:47.120 at the center of that um that became really um 0:13:47.200 --> 0:13:50.400 intense like that and so quickly and so surprisingly. I 0:13:50.480 --> 0:13:53.520 wanna play a clip from the podcast. Here is what 0:13:53.600 --> 0:13:56.120 you told your producer Henry at the start of the project. 0:13:57.400 --> 0:13:59.480 If he said to you, like, why are you doing this? 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:04.400 What would you say? In my perfect world of worlds, 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:08.480 this gesture would be the entire world and all the 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:10.959 people around him telling Richard Simmons that he should love 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:13.240 himself and to the point where he would believe it. 0:14:14.520 --> 0:14:22.560 I know that's impossible, but it'd be great. Go ahead. 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:25.760 Oh sorry, I thought that was more. Never my good. 0:14:25.840 --> 0:14:27.120 I just oh my god. I just put my finger 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:32.280 up to Kati. Correctly, Katie hold on saying great. Many 0:14:32.360 --> 0:14:36.560 people have said that the grand gesture this podcast in 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:39.840 your Search for Richard Simmons Dan wasn't all that grand. 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:43.240 That at best it was sweet, but at worst intrusive 0:14:43.280 --> 0:14:45.640 and perhaps even self serving. Let me read to you 0:14:45.680 --> 0:14:48.440 what a critic in The New York Times said. I 0:14:48.520 --> 0:14:51.880 just say, I've never read this. People told me about. 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:53.720 Oh please read it, but people told me about anyway. 0:14:54.040 --> 0:14:57.240 I just have one line from this article. The writer 0:14:57.320 --> 0:15:00.840 said it was morally suspect, and added is what friends do, 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:04.400 turn their loved ones personal crisis into a fun mystery 0:15:04.440 --> 0:15:08.960 investigation and record it for a hit podcast. The hit 0:15:09.000 --> 0:15:10.880 podcast part that I love that. I love that it's 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:12.440 assumed that I just knew this was going to be 0:15:12.480 --> 0:15:16.040 a hit, like for me. I for me, it feels 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:18.600 like I tricked people into giving me money to make 0:15:18.640 --> 0:15:20.880 this project about somebody that I think is really great, 0:15:21.160 --> 0:15:24.280 and I it never of course I wanted it to 0:15:24.320 --> 0:15:26.760 be a big thing, but I didn't realize that it 0:15:26.800 --> 0:15:30.400 would be. The flip side of that is, I really 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:32.880 do think that there's a real question of like, when 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:35.800 are you supposed to start asking these questions about people 0:15:35.840 --> 0:15:38.360 that you think are great and that are important and 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:40.080 you think might be in trouble. I mean, are we 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:43.760 supposed to wait? Like this might sound grim? Uh, you know, 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:46.200 are we supposed to wait till you know, in twenty years, 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:49.640 like Richard Simmons is dead, and then you know, and 0:15:49.640 --> 0:15:51.840 then he lived the last twenty years of his life 0:15:51.840 --> 0:15:54.600 in solitude, and there's all these questions about it, and 0:15:54.600 --> 0:15:57.120 then you know, people just line up like planes landing 0:15:57.120 --> 0:15:59.400 into l a X trying to get on MSNBC to 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:02.280 talk about it. Um and for some and for some reason, 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:04.960 that would be the sad thing to do for me. 0:16:05.120 --> 0:16:07.800 But with all due respect, is that really your job? 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:11.680 I mean, who made you the guy who should be 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:16.240 responsible for tracking down Richard Simmons when maybe he just 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:20.560 wants to be left alone. I would think that, you know, 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:22.560 I think anybody who sort of endeavors in a project 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:25.400 like this, there's some sort of you have to decide 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:28.320 that this is a story worth telling. UM. You know, 0:16:28.640 --> 0:16:33.800 I also think that, um, there were real questions, and 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:36.720 because I knew him, UM, it made me feel like 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:38.760 I was in a position to ask these questions, whereas 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:43.000 other people maybe couldn't. UM. Do you think you know, 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:46.920 when you say that, people might think, well, he was 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:52.640 really taking advantage of this friendship. Uh, they might that 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:56.120 that would be a shame. UM, but I certainly hope 0:16:56.160 --> 0:16:58.840 they wouldn't. I mean, I do think it's worth reminding 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:06.919 people and myself that there were real questions up to 0:17:07.000 --> 0:17:10.560 six weeks ago about what was going on with Richard Simmons. 0:17:10.680 --> 0:17:13.320 And that's not a joke, that's not hyperbole, that's not 0:17:13.560 --> 0:17:15.560 you know, making something out of nothing. That to me, 0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:20.240 knowing many many people, almost anybody I knew who knew 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:22.960 Richard Simmons from that class and knew him for years, 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:25.840 thought that something was wrong. And everybody, every one of 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:29.720 those people, including me, recognized that what they felt and 0:17:29.760 --> 0:17:33.360 what they knew about Richard and what his management and 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:37.880 his publicists were saying did not match up. They were saying, 0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:40.679 he just retired, He's fine, That's not what happened. And 0:17:40.720 --> 0:17:44.280 so it created this like there was just this gap 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:46.639 between what the people who were around him were saying 0:17:47.080 --> 0:17:50.200 versus what the people who knew him were feeling. And 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:54.480 I think in in in large part, we're correct at. 0:17:54.480 --> 0:17:57.119 On top of that, one of the one of the 0:17:57.119 --> 0:17:59.959 closest people to Richard before he disappeared, who I got 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:02.600 to know through Richard, who Richard told me to trust, 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:06.360 was telling me that something's going on here, that this 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:09.160 is not good, that this is scary, and here the reasons. 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:12.199 So it wasn't. This isn't. There's a part of it 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:14.160 where we treat it really light and have fun with it, 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:17.520 just like Richard will cry one second and laugh the next, 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:19.440 Like I love that sort of thing. But there's another 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:24.080 part of this where people were concerned and it bared investigating. 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:26.400 How did you reach out to some of the other 0:18:26.440 --> 0:18:29.400 people who you feature in the podcast. The woman who 0:18:29.480 --> 0:18:33.920 Richard drove to exercise class, who is how old again? 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:36.840 She's naughty five. She just had a ninety fifth birthday. 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:42.639 My name is Jerry, Jerry Sinclair. Other friends call Gi 0:18:43.080 --> 0:18:48.080 yeah and and and she was so sweet and really 0:18:48.160 --> 0:18:51.840 darling in this podcast. Not many people have a fourty 0:18:51.880 --> 0:18:58.480 year relationship with their exercise instructor. Well, these easy love 0:18:59.600 --> 0:19:03.960 and I do I did become like a second mother. 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:08.080 How did you convince her? I mean was she reticent? No, 0:19:08.359 --> 0:19:11.480 she wasn't reticent. The people around her were reticent. UM. 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:13.160 And I think the fact that I had been taking 0:19:13.160 --> 0:19:16.320 the class and that I was a familiar face to 0:19:16.359 --> 0:19:18.720 a lot of these people, UM, and that I wasn't 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:21.119 an outsider coming in trying to do a story and 0:19:21.240 --> 0:19:24.720 Richard Simmons, I was kind of coming from within and saying, Hey, 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:26.920 what's going on, guys and sort of hearing what everybody 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:30.840 was saying, really not understanding what was happening. Um. And 0:19:31.280 --> 0:19:34.680 I think there was a familiarity that UM that allowed 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:37.360 me to talk to people. It just it made them 0:19:37.359 --> 0:19:39.080 open up a little bit more. But it was still 0:19:39.640 --> 0:19:42.359 not an easy road to ho like, people are still 0:19:42.440 --> 0:19:45.920 really protective of Richard, and people are afraid to you know, 0:19:45.960 --> 0:19:48.160 they don't want to say something that's going to be misconstrued. 0:19:48.200 --> 0:19:51.120 And so did anyone call you after you interviewed them 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:54.040 and say I don't really feel comfortable do you mind 0:19:54.040 --> 0:19:58.440 not including that? Were you hoping that this would end 0:19:59.200 --> 0:20:02.359 with Richard being an interview with you and telling you 0:20:02.640 --> 0:20:07.520 where he'd been, what he'd been doing and what had happened, um, 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:10.280 and the best of all possible worlds. Yeah, and the 0:20:10.320 --> 0:20:13.760 best of all possible worlds. Um. A big part of 0:20:13.760 --> 0:20:16.320 what I was hoping for was that he would feel 0:20:16.440 --> 0:20:19.240 that that he would that he would feel that a 0:20:19.280 --> 0:20:24.320 lot of people think and felt that he was isolated 0:20:24.400 --> 0:20:26.960 and alone in a way that wasn't healthy for him 0:20:27.080 --> 0:20:28.680 or for others, and that he would tell the same 0:20:28.720 --> 0:20:32.199 to them when he was there, like it's it's a 0:20:32.200 --> 0:20:34.360 big part of obesity. Is like when we talked about 0:20:34.400 --> 0:20:37.680 in the podcast, is is you isolate yourself, um, and 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:40.119 it's unhealthy and you have to find people you trust. 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:45.000 And I you know, Misca supposedly is at his fighting weight. 0:20:45.960 --> 0:20:48.080 Detective Becker tells me that, Yeah, it was just great, 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:51.280 It's amazing. Um. But what I was hoping was that 0:20:51.480 --> 0:20:53.399 if he wasn't in a good way, that he would 0:20:53.400 --> 0:20:56.800 feel that that love and he would feel that understanding 0:20:56.840 --> 0:20:59.080 and people respecting the impact he's made on them, and 0:20:59.119 --> 0:21:01.360 that would have an impact. I'm sure. So in a way, 0:21:01.400 --> 0:21:05.639 you tried to deliver a love letter, not a voyeuristic 0:21:05.720 --> 0:21:08.919 invasion of privacy. No, I mean I would try to 0:21:08.920 --> 0:21:10.679 do a love letter. I also tried to tell a 0:21:10.720 --> 0:21:14.119