Two weeks after Richard Simmons was pronounced dead at his Los Angeles area home, the fitness guru’s housekeeper speaks out.
While speaking to PEOPLE, the housekeeper, identified as Teresa Reveles, spoke about how she had been working for and living with Simmons since 1987.
“I showed up in here and Richard says to me, ‘Where are your clothes? Where is your big suitcase?’” Reveles recalled first meeting Richard Simmons. “I said, ‘I just bring the little suitcase because I only try this for two weeks. If you don’t like me or you don’t like my cooking, then I can’t work.’” Simmons told her: “Teresa, come in, you are never going to leave. We are going to be together until I die.”
She then noted, “And you know what? His dream came true. He knew somehow.”
Reveles started to cry amid the interview. “I can’t stop crying,” she told the media outlet. “I still can’t believe what happened.” Asked if she would rather speak later, she replies, “No, I want to celebrate Richard. He died happy.”
Reveles also said she was the one who discovered Richard Simmons the morning of his death. He was in his bedroom. “When I saw him, he looked peaceful,” she said. The housekeeper did note the fitness guru’s hands were balled into fists. “That’s why I know it was a heart attack. I had a heart attack a few years ago, and my hands did the same.”
Details about Richard Simmons’ death, including the cause, have yet to be released.
Richard Simmons’ Housekeeper Refers to Herself As the Fitness Guru’s ‘Companion’
As she continued to speak about her time with Richard Simmons, Teresa Reveles referred to herself as the fitness guru’s “companion.”
“If I was in the kitchen and then I come into the living room, he would hide and jump out,” Teresa recalled. “Being so loud that he would scare me to death. I’d start screaming, ‘Richard, you almost killed me!’ He’d just laugh and say, ‘Teresa, almost doesn’t count.’”
Teresa went on to share when Richard Simmons stepped away from the public in 2014. “Before that, he never was home. He only came sometimes for a weekend and then he had to leave Tuesday and then goes for 10 days and then would come back to the house for clothes or to see the dogs for two days, back and forth.”
Reveles further pointed out that Simmons missed his six Dalmatians, all named for characters from Gone With the Wind, who had died over the years.
Richard Simmons’ brother Lenny also spoke highly of Teresa. “Teresa was extremely loyal and trustworthy. She loved my brother, and he loved her. We are blessed to have Teresa in our lives.”