Gene Simmons has once again addressed the ongoing criticism from fans regarding his portrayal of late KISS guitarist Ace Frehley and original drummer Peter Criss. He used a poignant metaphor to explain their departures from the band.
Speaking on the “Inside Of You With Michael Rosenbaum” podcast, Simmons compared the situation to a broken home. He suggested that fans, like children, struggle to understand the difficult decisions made by band leadership.
“When the kids are at home and there’s mom and dad and all of a sudden dad gets thrown out of the house, the kids don’t understand — they love mom and dad — why mom kicked dad out of the house,” Simmons explained. “And she tries to explain to them: ‘He was a drunk, he was a loser, he was late, didn’t show up on time, didn’t do what he was supposed to do, was barely around the kids, but he’s your father.’ And the fans are like kids. They don’t know.”
Simmons elaborated on Frehley’s early struggles with the band. He noted that the guitarist’s talent was undeniable but his reliability was questionable. “If you would’ve met Ace at the beginning [of KISS] — God bless him — you would’ve fallen in love with the idea, who he is and all that,” Simmons said. “But Ace turned to beverages and chemicals. Early on, he wouldn’t show up… I mean, he wouldn’t show up to do his guitar parts on even ‘Destroyer’ early on.”
He also addressed Peter Criss’s situation. Both musicians’ struggles intensified once fame and fortune arrived. “Yeah, but when you’re together in a band, you’re together more time than your family members or your wife or kids. So he’d be late and all this stuff. And Peter [Criss, original KISS drummer], we love him, and God bless, he’s still around, but really from the early days, as soon as the money and the fame came in, it was like the dark cloud came over. And they were both in and out of the band three separate times.”
Simmons’ comments reflect decades of tension within KISS regarding the band members’ personal demons. Both Frehley and Criss battled severe alcohol and drug addiction throughout their careers, according to Louder Sound. This addiction ultimately destabilized the band and prevented them from participating in KISS’s final farewell tour.
The substance abuse issues became particularly acute during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Ultimate Classic Rock reported that Peter Criss’s addiction reached critical levels. His intake became so unmanageable that the band hired session drummer Anton Fig to record their 1979 album Unmasked rather than rely on Criss’s participation. By that time, Criss himself admitted in his memoir that “with each sip and each snort, I felt my world collapsing around me.” His erratic behavior during performances included stopping mid-show and even threatening bandmates with a broken champagne bottle. These incidents forced Simmons and Paul Stanley to remove him from the group.
While both musicians struggled with addiction, their trajectories diverged significantly in later years. Remind Magazine reported that Ace Frehley eventually achieved sobriety. He claimed over 12 years of continuous sobriety by 2019. During this period, he successfully performed full shows with his own band configurations. This redemption arc suggested that Frehley had overcome the demons that plagued him for decades.
However, Frehley’s recovery could not prevent tragedy. The same source reported that Ace Frehley died in October 2025 at age 74 from complications related to a fall down the stairs that caused a brain bleed. Simmons linked the fatal accident to Frehley’s ongoing struggles with substance abuse. He suggested that addiction may have contributed to the circumstances of his death, even after years of sobriety.
