KISS icon Gene Simmons recently explained why he finally committed to monogamy at age 62, addressing how his rock star lifestyle affected his family in an interview with The Daily Heretic.
Simmons discussed his relationship with his wife, Shannon Tweed, and credited her with saving him from destructive behaviors.
“I asked my beloved Shannon,” Simmons said. “I finally got married. Two kids together. I married her twice. I’m going to marry her again, and I’ll continue to marry her as long as my heart keeps because she in a very real way saved me from the dark side, which is drugs, alcohol, and all that. I’ve never been high or drunk in my life. I’m turning 77 and that’s why my hand doesn’t do this. Put sand with your fuel in the car and it’s not going to run very well.”
He then reflected on the early decades of their relationship and his past infidelity.
“For the first we’ve been together, we’re about to turn 42 years together,” Simmons continued. “The first 29 years together, I would mount anything. I just didn’t care. It didn’t matter. The thing that guys say was actually profoundly accurate. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just sugar, sugar, sugar, sugar. It lasts a few things. You know, the perfect date. I’m done. Get out.”
Simmons acknowledged how his actions impacted Shannon and how his rock star persona contributed to his self-engrossed behavior.
“That’s exactly what it is,” he explained, referring to how his actions hurt Shannon. “And there was a shrink who actually offered that men who are arrogant and self-engrossed. You have to be some of that to be able to climb on that stage and weather the storm because most people are concerned they’re going to be judged. They don’t want to get in front of other people. Those of us who get up on stage don’t care. It’s like, ‘I’m here.’ So for the first 29 years being together, we lived together. I supported everybody. The kids were great, Nick and Sophie and stuff, but I didn’t keep any of it a secret. There were photos, the paparazzi, and all that kind of stuff. And Shannon never tortured me. She never did that line in the sand where she said, ‘You either do this or you do that.'”
He went on to describe the moment he decided to propose and the realization that his actions were hurting his family.
“And at 62, I dropped to my knees in Belize,” Simmons added. “We were shooting our reality show. We had a TV show. And despite everything I ever told myself, I dropped to my knees and I asked her to marry me. I never wanted to have kids or get married. I didn’t want to turn into my father—have kids and then run out on your family, which shamefully many fathers do. And so once I decided to do that, there was the epiphany. You know, this kind of, ‘Hey, asshole. How could you be so self-engrossed?’ ‘Well, look, it’s my little corner here. It doesn’t affect anybody else.’ Yeah, it does. It affects Sophie and my son Nick and Shannon. It breaks their hearts. ‘Why is daddy doing that still?’ So, you got to shit or get off the pot. If you want to get married and have kids, you’ve got to commit. That’s what I’ve done.”
Simmons’ decision to finally marry Tweed closed a chapter that had stretched across nearly three decades, and the couple’s history offers context for the commitment he described.
The KISS bassist and the model and actress first met in 1983 and stayed together ever since, though they waited 28 years before officially tying the knot. They exchanged vows on October 1, 2011, at the Beverly Hills Hotel in front of roughly 400 guests.
The proposal itself unfolded far from Hollywood. Simmons popped the question while the couple vacationed in Belize, and the moment was filmed for the season finale of their A&E reality series “Gene Simmons Family Jewels.” The rocker, then 61, got down on one knee before the mother of his two children.
The proposal became one of the most memorable scenes of the show. “I come with so much baggage, but you’re the only friend I’ve got,” Simmons told Tweed at the time. “You’re the only one I love… and you’re the only one I ever will love.”
His resistance to marriage had been a long-running theme before that. Simmons often joked that he and Tweed were “happily unmarried” and repeatedly quoted Groucho Marx, saying, “Marriage is an institution, and I don’t want to live in an institution.” Tweed later summed up those years in a remark cited by IMDb: “He opted never to marry. I opted not to bitch about it.”
In a 2011 interview, Simmons framed his wife’s role in his life in terms that echoed his latest comments. “I need Shannon in my life,” he said. “Not just because of love and family but because she holds me accountable.”
