Richard Simmons Appeared Unrecognizable In Final Photo As Cause Of Death Remains Mystery

Richard Simmons planned to share a new message and photo on social media the weekend he passed away.

On Saturday, the fitness guru's team shared the social media post he originally planned for July 14 -- the day after Simmons died at age 76.

"We have the post Richard planned to share with you last Sunday. We thought you'd want to see it," his staff wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

The post featured a recent photo of Simmons, who appeared unrecognizable with gray hair and a slightly thinner face.

However, Simmons was all smiles as he posed in a bright orange astronaut suit with the NASA logo.

Simmons planned to caption the photo: "Let me fly you to the moon so we can gaze among the stars. Love, Richard."

The quote appeared to reference the lyrics of the song, "Fly Me to the Moon."

Simmons' staff explained that the professional fitness coach typically created the posts he would share on social media during weekends ahead of time, writing captions for them by Friday night.

"Richard worked very hard on his posts for you," his team wrote in another tweet. "He had many ideas and would work ahead... going back to each one [and] making changes until he had it just like he wanted before posting."

"As you know, on the weekends, he would just share a photo with a caption. He always chose his photos and wrote his captions for the upcoming weekend by Friday," they explained.

TMZ reported that Simmons was found unresponsive by his housekeeper at his Los Angeles home on July 13 -- the day after he celebrated his 76th birthday.

The housekeeper called law enforcement, who declared him dead at the scene.

Simmons reportedly felt dizzy and fell in his bathroom the night before he died, unnamed sources told the outlet.

Simmons' cause of death remains unknown. According to TMZ, his manner of death was listed as pending an investigation in his death certificate.

However, the document obtained by the outlet did reveal that Simmons was buried at the Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park and Mortuary in Los Angeles.

Simmons had been active on Facebook just a few hours before his passing.

Among his last posts was one that featured a throwback photo of him celebrating his birthday as a child and anecdotes about how he would spend his special day growing up.

In another Facebook post, Simmons expressed his gratitude to everyone who sent him birthday greetings.

"Thank you...I never got so many messages about my birthday in my life! I am sitting here writing emails. Have a most beautiful rest of your Friday," he wrote, signing it: "Love, Richard."

His final post, shared Saturday morning local time, read: "Hello gorgeous! Please don't rain on my parade."

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Richard Simmons