The rumors didn’t come out of thin air. The notion Richard Simmons was kept housebound by Teresa Reveles came from his former personal assistant and masseur, Mauro Oliveira, who accused the housekeeper of using special powers on the fitness guru. “I asked him, does she control your life? He said ‘Yes,'” Oliveira told the Daily Mail in March 2016.”And I believe she’s doing black magic.” Pictures published by the outlet suggest Simmons and Reveles are indeed rather close.
One of the photos showed both at a party together, while the other featured Simmons with his hands on Reveles’ shoulders as she sat at a table. But Simmons said Oliveira’s version couldn’t be further from the truth. “That’s just very silly,” he told Today that month. “Teresa Reveles has been with me for 30 years. It’s almost like we’re a married couple.” And Oliveira claims she hopes to benefit as if that’s her actual legal status.
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“Teresa believes she’s his unofficial wife and because she’s tolerated him for 30 years, she believes that she deserves to inherit everything,” he said. But Oliveira isn’t the only one who thinks Reveles keeps his loved ones away. “Teresa did turn me away several times,” a friend told the New York Daily News (via Radar) in March 2016. Simmons doesn’t deny he’s cut people out. During a 2015 welfare check, Simmons told police he’d decided to keep only the people who actually cared for him in his life, TMZ reported.
