Last month, Gene Simmons was banned from Fox News for life due to accusations claiming his erratic behavior by insulting female staffers along with exposing his chest. The KISS bassist/vocalist has denied these accusations during a recent interview with BBC’s Hardtalk.
He explained:
“Here’s how I wear my shirt. Somebody there apparently had the goods in for me and called something called The Daily Beast or something and said whatever they said I did. I did nothing. I always had people around me. Like when I come here, I’ve got handlers and everybody sees what I’m doing. You can’t go into a public area and do anything.”
He added:
“The problem is with social media today is nobody calls you and says, ‘Do you have a comment?’ So the story was printed, and, of course, everybody exploded. And Fox, you know, they’re nice people — I like them a lot — closed ranks and they’re afraid of getting sued by everybody. Nothing happened. I stand by every word.”
In the wake of the Harvey Weinstein’s sexual assault allegations, Simmons was also recently accused of sexual harassment by at least two women. As the interview progressed, he was asked about women who has opened up about their sexual misconduct experiences:
“All of a sudden, 44 years on in a rock band, somebody’s coming up and saying, ‘This guy is a bad guy.’ It’s not true. I think the climate is horrifically bad and yet at the same time empowering to the right women. There are some really bad guys out there; I just happen not to be one of them.”
Later, he expressed:
“The women who are going after the Weinsteins of the world? They should go to the cops. The police are here and the court system is here for you to do what the women did with Bill Cosby. You have a complaint? Go to the cops. Going to the court of public opinion on social media is… Maybe it exactly happened the way it happened. Why don’t you get yourself a lawyer and do due diligence.”
Following his response, it was brought to Simmons attention that unfortunately sexual misconduct cannot always reach criminal prosecution and people respond via public attention in order to change the culture that has been keeping these abused women silent.
Simmons replied with:
“There’s an organization here in England — I saw it yesterday on a chat show — a woman heads it, about the victims, you know, the men who are committing suicide, who are wrongly accused of all kinds of nonsense. What about that?”
Aside from his cold response, the discussion carried on with this subject and asked what he thinks about the current hunt for sexual predators, asking if it has gone too far or considered unfair.
Simmons repeated himself with the following statement:
“I’m not saying it’s gone too far or not enough. I’m saying, go to the cops.”
