In yesterday’s Working For The Weekday column at Paste, I covered Gene Simmons’ vapid, misguided comments about his former bandmate, the late Ace Frehley. The KISS guitarist passed away at the age of 74 in October, after sustaining a skull fracture, subdural hematoma, and stroke after a fall. Simmons’ response to Frehley’s passing? “Bad decision,” he told the New York Post. “He refused [advice] from people that cared about him—to try to change his lifestyle. In and out of bad decisions. Falling down the stairs—I’m not a doctor—doesn’t kill you. There may have been other issues, and it breaks my heart. The saddest thing—you reap what you shall sow unfortunately.” Mind you, Frehley revealed in 2024 that he had been sober for 18 years. With a tongue as big as his, I’m shocked Simmons has any room in his mouth for a foot.
It’s been an especially banner week for Simmons’ big mouth. KISS was featured at the Kennedy Center Honors this past weekend (alongside Sylvester Stallone and Gloria Gaynor), and he couldn’t stop himself from jerking off Donald Trump over his new multi-million dollar White House ballroom. “I believe the ballroom that’s being built, which is going to be twice as big, that is exactly what we need—a face lift,” Simmons said. “Have you ever been to Versailles? The American house of the people is shameful.” Commending Trump ruining the famous East Wing and destroying magnolia trees and praising Versailles, a royal palace commissioned by King Louis XIV—you know, a monarch—is one hell of an at-bat for classic rock’s Egghead of the Year frontrunner. Are we sure his head’s all right after that car crash? He and Ted Nugent should go bowling together, if they don’t already.
Simmons is a “worst person you know makes a great point” sort of dude. He’s defended trans and gay rights, advocated for public safety during the COVID-19 pandemic (he even called anti-vaxxers the “enemy” and “evil”), and tackled initiatives aimed at health care access for children. In 2021 he disavowed the Trump administration for its corrupt dishonesty, saying that we “all lie to some extent, but what happened the last four years was beyond anything I ever thought imaginable from people who had lots of power.”
But Simmons is a fence-sitter. He recently lamented that the college kids protesting the Palestinian genocide were “well-intentioned” but “not informed.” This wishy-washy ethical mockup is not new. In 2004, he abandoned his support for presidential candidate John Kerry’s environmental agenda, policies on women’s rights, and the separation of church and state in favor of a bumbling, pea-brained George W. Bush and his stance on the invasion of Iraq, calling him “the worst enemy terrorists have.” That same year, he called Islam a “vile culture.” Supporting Mitt Romney in 2012, Simmons cited that “America should be in business and it should be run by a businessman.” He went on to further his long-standing beef with music piracy by blaming it for the death of rock and roll. That same year, Simmons also claimed to be “the guy who says ‘Jump!’ when there’s a guy on top of a building who says, ‘That’s it, I can’t take it anymore, I’m going to jump.’”
In 2017, Simmons went on Fox & Friends to promote a new book, entered a staff meeting uninvited, started to unclothe, and told jokes that I’m assuming were offensive, considering that Fox News banned him from the show for life. A year later a radio host sued him for sexual assault, alleging that he “turned standard interview questions into sexual innuendos” and made unwanted physical constant. Frehley accused Simmons of groping his wife in 2019, calling the KISS bassist an “asshole and a sex addict.” Some may chalk all of these good and bad positions up to “containing multitudes” or simple human contradiction. I just call it being a dick.
And to be honest, I’m shocked that Simmons didn’t start frothing at the mouth when a Kennedy Center Honors red carpet interviewer asked him if he and KISS would play the upcoming Turning Point USA Super Bowl halftime show. Instead, he hit the reporter with the only response an artist of his stature (the type that uses flaccid, plastic, and embarrassing legacy tours to syphon money from boomers still clinging to their glory days) would care to offer: “How much?” Apparently it would take a number that’s “far more than you’ll ever be able to afford in your entire lifetime” to get KISS to play Turning Point’s anti-Bad Bunny counterprogram. Still, Gene Simmons is no hero, even if he plans to sit on the couch in February.
Matt Mitchell is Paste’s music editor, reporting from their home in Los Angeles.
