Gene Simmons says he has one regret about his relationship with Kiss founding guitarist Ace Frehley. Speaking at the 2025 Kiss Kruise in Las Vegas this past weekend, the bass guitarist said he wishes he had tried harder to give some tough love to Frehley, as well as founding Kiss drummer Peter Kriss, when they were partying too hard.
“If I have any regrets, my hand to God, it’s that I sometimes wish we were smarter and better at trying to help Ace and Peter have better lives,” Simmons said (via People).
Simmons admitted that too often he and others would look the other way rather than confront Frehley and Criss.
“All of us are guilty of it, and so am I. [We’d say] ‘I don’t want to start an argument. Let’s just continue doing the tour.’ Because you want to get through it for selfish reasons, because it’s working, and the chicks, and the money, and you don’t want to ruin anything.
“Meantime, somebody who might be your brother is ruining their life by making bad decisions.
“I wish I had practiced more tough love and been more in the face of people that we cared about,” says Simmons, who at 76 has been anti-drink and drugs his entire life,. “It’s not going to be a popular thing, or you’re going to argue about it, but in the long run you’re going to be helping that person, hopefully, change their life.”
Simmons made similar comments last year when speaking about the duo’s contributions to the group he and guitarist Paul Stanley put together after the failure of their previous band, Wicked Lester.