Rock
Gene Simmons tells fellow entertainers to stay out of politics
KISS frontman Gene Simmons thinks celebrities should "shut the f*** up" when it comes to talking about political matters because people don't care about their opinions.
Gene Simmons has urged celebrities to stop weighing in on political issues, arguing that actors, musicians and comedians are no more qualified than anyone else to comment on world affairs.
The KISS frontman, 76, said people in the public eye should focus on their work rather than lecturing fans, insisting that most audiences “don’t care” what entertainers think about global events.
His remarks followed criticism from Ben Stiller, who recently condemned President Donald Trump after the White House shared a clip from the actor’s 2008 film Tropic Thunder as apparent justification for military action.
Speaking to TMZ, Simmons said performers should “do your art and shut up”, adding that hard‑working people “don’t want to be lectured to by people who live in mansions and drive Rolls‑Royces”.
Simmons also singled out Mark Ruffalo — mispronouncing his surname as “Buffalo” — for frequently sharing political opinions, before joking that people might as well “ask Kylie Jenner what she thinks of the war so far”.
Despite his stance, Simmons has publicly discussed Trump in the past.
After appearing on the first season of Celebrity Apprentice in 2008, he told Rolling Stone in 2016 that the businessman was “good for the political system”.
By 2022, however, he expressed a very different view in an interview with Spin, saying Trump had contributed to deep polarisation and was “out for himself”.
