KISS Members Who Once Referred to Donald Trump As a ‘True Danger to Democracy’ React to Kennedy Center Honor: ‘Deeply Honored’
Trump, who will be the first president to host the awards show, announced this year's honorees on Wednesday (Aug. 13).
KISS felt like shouting out loud when Donald Trump revealed that they would be among the this year’s Kennedy Center Honorees on Wednesday (Aug. 13). The (allegedly) retired greasepaint rockers known for such beloved jams as “Love Gun,” “Black Diamond” and “Christine Sixteen” made the cut along with country icon George Strait, Broadway star Michael Crawford, disco singer Gloria Gaynor and Rocky/Rambo actor Sylvester Stallone.
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Trump said he was deeply involved in the selection process this year — including his plans to become the first U.S. president to host the show — and the choice of KISS is interesting given the president’s well-known aversion to anyone critical of him.
Despite previously disagreeing with Trump’s actions during his first term, when reached by TMZ, the band’s members were reportedly joyful about joining the ranks of such past Kennedy Center icons as Bob Dylan, Ella Fitzgerald, Harry Belafonte, Pete Seeger, Stevie Wonder and Garth Brooks, among many others.
“KISS is the embodiment of the American dream,” said bassist/singer Gene Simmons. “We are deeply honored to receive the Kennedy Center Honor.”
Singer/guitarist Paul Stanley reportedly told the outlet, “From our earliest days, KISS has embodied the American ideal that all things are possible and that hard work pays off. The prestige of the Kennedy Center Honors cannot be overstated and I accept this on behalf of the long legacy of KISS and all of the band members who helped create our iconic band.”
Former guitarist Ace Frehley called it a “dream come true that I never thought would materialize” and former drummer Peter Criss said, “I feel so blessed. This is the greatest honor of our career.”
Trump was the first president to never attend the annual Kennedy Center Honors gala during his first term and until recently he had never taken in a single program at the beloved D.C. arts center.
The choice of sometime critics KISS is interesting because it comes a week after Trump unexpectedly fired the head of the non-partisan, technocratic Bureau of Labor Statistics after it released a jobs report he claimed, without evidence, had been “rigged” to make him look bad.
Simmons — who got fired by Trump in week three of the first season of the The Celebrity Apprentice in 2008 — initially praised the president before he first won the White House. The rocker known for his entrepreneurial acumen called Trump the “truest political animal I’ve ever seen onstage,” lauding the former reality TV star for not having speechwriters and being “good for the political system.
He changed his tune a short time later.
The band turned down a reported invitation to play Trump’s first inauguration and by the time Trump lost his second bid for office to President Joe Biden in 2020, Simmons had a very different view. “I knew him before he entered politics. Look what that gentleman did to this country and the polarization – got all the cockroaches to rise to the top. Once upon a time, you were embarrassed to be publicly racist and out there with conspiracy theories. Now it’s all out in the open because he allowed it,” Simmons said to Spin in May 2022.
Simmons told the magazine that the two knew each other before the Apprentice from hanging around the same nightclubs, but that being president is a very different job than hosting a game show. “You have a different responsibility when you’re just a citizen or an entrepreneur. You don’t make policy,” he said. “It doesn’t affect life and death. When you get into a position of power, it does affect lives. I don’t think he’s a Republican or a Democrat. He’s out for himself, any way you can get there. And in the last election, over 70 million people bought it hook, line and sinker.”
Similarly, Stanley tweeted in Jan. 2021 that Trump’s refusal to accept the results of the previous year’s election loss was “ABHORRENT. A true danger to our democracy. The issue isn’t that it WON’T work. It’s Mob Boss behavior and politicians putting party over audits, investigations, court rulings & COUNTRY in an effort to overrule the will of American voters.”
Stanley also referred to the violent horde of Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 as “TERRORISTS,” calling the assault an “armed insurrection” by a mob who were all pardoned when Trump took office again earlier this year. The singer also noted back then that the “flames were fanned today & over time by the president [Trump] & specific senators who CANNOT be allowed now to distance from or denounce what they have directly caused. Know their names. THIS is the result of their deception. Shame.”
The Trump-hosted 2025 Kennedy Center Honors will air on CBS in December.
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