Gene Simmons calls Prince’s death “pathetic”

Scott Weiland, Lemmy Kilmister, Paul Kantner, Glenn Frey, Keith Emerson, David Bowie, and Prince. It’s been a rough few months for rock n’ roll. Gene Simmons from Kiss recently commented on the passing of Prince in an interview with Newsweek.

“Bowie was the most tragic of all because it was real sickness, All the other ones were a choice. His drugs killed him. What do you think, he died from a cold?”

Prince’s lawyer claimed Prince wasn’t on drugs here.

Gene went on saying, “I think Prince was heads, hands and feet above all the rest of them. I thought he left [Michael] Jackson in the dust. Prince was way beyond that. But how pathetic that he killed himself. Don’t kid yourself, that’s what he did. Slowly, I’ll grant you… but that’s what drugs and alcohol is: a slow death.”

Newsweek: Did you ever meet Prince?

Gene Simmons: I took Diana [Ross, his girlfriend at the time] to see him when he was first starting out. He was playing a club and we’d never seen anything like that. Backstage when we came up to say ‘you were great,’ we were expecting this huge personality and he was a very small, slight human being. He might have been five-foot-four, very shy, with his eyes to the ground, very self-effacing. He just couldn’t take a compliment: ‘Thank you, thank you.’ He spoke in a whisper. It was shocking actually. He couldn’t look Diana Ross in the face—he kept his eyes to the ground.

The one question I have is: When we all start out and we have these big dreams and you finally get your wish—you have more money than God and fame—what is that insane gene in us, well, a lot of us, that makes us want to succumb to the cliché of clichés: drugs and alcohol?

Are you saying you’ve never dabbled yourself?

I’ve never been high or drunk in my life. I have to validate that: Except in a dentist’s chair where they knock you out. I’ve never been high or drunk. I don’t care if anybody believes it or not. It’s just a personal life choice. I can almost understand drinking or getting high if it made my schmeckel bigger, or made me smarter, but nothing happens.

Do the purported circumstances around Prince’s death hurt his legacy?

No. Your legacy becomes even bigger, you become more iconic, if you die before your time—Marilyn Monroe, Elvis and all that. They capture the youth.

Gene has since apologized for his comments via his Twitter account.