Noted: Simmons, up until the last three years, was indisputably a public figure, but all his actions since have indicated his desire to be a private citizen. “Just because Richard Simmons was a flamboyant and bold public figure, doesn’t mean he needs to remain that way throughout the entirety of his life,” Katy Culver, the director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told me. “If … he just decided enough was enough and he wanted to retreat, that’s a decision he gets to make; that’s not a decision a podcast author gets to make for him.”
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