Pauly Shore’s Richard Simmons biopic embroiled in tension after star’s death
The family of Richard Simmons are embroiled in a tussle with Pauly Shore over a biopic movie about the late fitness instructor and television personality that is meant to star Shore in the lead role, with the star adamant about making the film.
Simmons passed away last month at the age of 76. In recent times, there have been suggestions that the fitness icon did not want Shore to make the biopic, with Twitter posts arriving online. However, Shore feels unsure whether it was really Simmons who was posting the tweets.
Speaking with Entertainment Tonight, Shore noted, “I know he wanted me to do it. I don’t even know if that was him tweeting [disapproval] the whole time, to be quite honest. I don’t know who that was.”
To clarify what had been going on between the parties involved, Simmons’ brother, Lenny, took control of the late fitness icon’s Twitter account and offered his opinions. He was clear that Simmons did not want Shore to make his biopic.
“Pauly Shore has recently made comments to Entertainment Tonight concerning his attempts to proceed with an unauthorized movie about Richard,” the tweet read. “You’ve seen here on Richard’s account what he had to say about the biopic.”
According to Lenny, Simmons had “absolutely” been writing his own Twitter posts before his death, working on them “a week in advance” in order to “get the right message”. Lenny added: “He would often read them to Cathy and I beforehand”.
Lenny also says that Simmons did not “text, email or call Pauly with anything,” despite Shore claiming that he had been contacted with several “good luck” messages surrounding the film. The film was first announced back in January this year, and Simmons immediately took to Facebook to express his disapproval of it.
“You may have heard they may be doing a movie about me with Pauly Shore,” Simmons had written. “I have never given my permission for this movie. So don’t believe everything you read.” Even so, Shore wanted to be clear that his movie would be “all about love,” claiming that he wouldn’t want to be “vindictive” or “make fun of someone.”
After Simmons distanced himself from the film, Shore said that he stayed “up all night crying”. According to Simmons, he was already in talks with studios to create an authorised movie account of his life, which Shore himself said would be “amazing” and not necessarily take away from his “unauthorised” version.
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