Richard Simmons Hospitalized For Bizzare Behavior

Late Friday night, Richard Simmons was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, after exhibiting bizarre behavior.

“Simmons was acting in an unusually strange manner just before midnight when someone at his Hollywood Hills home became sufficiently alarmed to call 911,” according to a source for TMZ. “Paramedics rushed to the home and evaluated Richard, determining he should go to a hospital for evaluation.”

The 67-year-old fitness guru “agreed to be taken to the hospital.” At the moment, it isn’t clear if Simmons is still hospitalized.

Up until three months ago, Simmons had not been seen in public for nearly two years. Several of his longtime friends and business partners have come forward, claiming Simmons has been out of the public eye because he is being controlled and taken advantage of by several people.

“I feel that Richard is now being controlled by the very people that he controlled his whole life,” Mauro Oliveira, a close friend and former assistant, told NY Daily News in March. “Controlled in the sense that they are taking advantage of his weak mental state. Controlled in the sense that they are controlling his mail, controlling his everything. His brother, the manager and Teresa. Those three people.”

This provoked a response from Simmons, who refuted the allegations in a couple of interviews.

“I am not kidnapped, I am just in my house right now,” Simmons told Entertainment Tonight. No one should be worried about me. The people that surround me are wonderful people who take great care of me.”

“No one is holding me in my house as a hostage,” he the Today (via US Magazine) show by phone on March 14. “You know, I do what I want to do as I’ve always done, so people should sort of just believe what I have to say because, like, I’m Richard Simmons!”