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.
“Ace and Peter have as much credit for the beginning of the band as Paul and I do. There's no question it was that chemistry,” Simmons told Backstage Pass (via Classic Rock). “They should have been here with us 50 or 55 years later and enjoying the fruits of their labor. But sadly, they're not.
“It's not even unique,” he added. “Go to almost every band and you'll find people ingesting stuff more than the bum on the street corner, except they're richer and they can afford to ingest more. It's sad.”
Frehley, who died on October 16 following a fall at home, eventually got clean and sober. He once told Classic Rock that “alcohol and drugs were my constant companion, my best friend — and worst enemy. Sometimes, they were a deterrent to my career and personal life.” Ultimately, he says a phone call from his daughter, Monique, drove him to get sober.
The guitarist was understandably a topic of conversation at the Kiss Kruise event. As reported by Guitar World, the band held a candle-lit tribute to him before performing an unplugged set on Saturday. The show marked the first time Simmons and Stanley have taken to the stage together since their End of the Road tour concluded in New York in December 2023,.
In related news, Simmons has reflected on the solo Eddie Van Halen recorded for a Kiss demo — a band he once asked to join — and why he made Ace copy it note for note.
