When Kiss lumbered on to the scene in 1974 with their self-titled debut album, no one could’ve predicted how much a part of popular culture their bat-winged, fire-breathing, blood-drooling totem, Gene Simmons, would become. When Simmons – born Chaim Witz in Israel, the son of Hungarian Jews – relocated to New York at a young age he immediately embraced the American dream. As Kiss’s career exploded – quite literally – the bassist/vocalist proved he was no shock-rock novelty act, masterminding an extensive merchandising range and helping transform the band into a global business.
Simmons’s larger-than-life personality helped him inveigle his way into rarefied social circles, and he enjoyed unlikely love affairs with a couple of the world’s top female singers. In 2010, Gene looked back on several of the (non-sexual) encounters he’d had with the great and good of rock’n’roll, Hollywood and even the White House.
