KISS icon Gene Simmons recently opened up about the personal and professional consequences of speaking his mind. He shared his thoughts in an interview with Bill O’Reilly.
When asked directly whether his freedom of intellectual thought had cost him any work, Simmons gave a candid and wide-ranging response. He touched on cancel culture, border security, and his views on celebrities expressing political opinions.
“Yeah, there’s such a thing as being cancelled,” Simmons said. “I have been canceled a little bit. But I’m blessed. I’m putting my hands together. When you get to a certain financial comfort zone, it doesn’t affect. But it’s offensive.”
Simmons went on to describe himself as a freethinker who draws from both sides of the political aisle. He then made a pointed statement on U.S. border policy.
“I’m much more a freethinker and closer to the center on certain areas,” he continued. “I agree with either party. I am a firm believer that the wall should be built, absolutely. The previous pope who was a nice man and so on — I respected him — said that it’s inhumane to have a wall between Mexico and America, except for the fact that the Vatican has a massive wall around it for the same reason that we should. Border security.”
Despite sharing his own political views, Simmons also expressed reservations about celebrities using their platforms for such purposes.
“I do have a point of view as a performer myself,” he said. “You get up on stage, it’s the place for art. I’m really not interested in famous people espousing their political or beliefs. I don’t want to go to Mark Ruffalo and this actor and find out what his sense is of our foreign policy, in the same way that I don’t know what Kylie Jenner’s political points of views are.”
The remarks highlight a notable tension in Simmons’s position. He simultaneously acknowledges the cost of public opinion-sharing while continuing to voice his own views on contentious political issues.
Simmons is an immigrant from Israel who came to the United States as a young child with his mother. That background has made him extremely patriotic and deeply grateful to live in the country. He draws directly on that experience when making the case for stricter border controls. For Simmons, supporting a border wall is not a contradiction of immigrant values — it is an extension of them. His position is not about closing the door on immigration, but about ensuring it happens through the legal system.
Simmons told Trump critics that Donald Trump won the election “by millions” and through the electoral college, adding “end of story” to dismiss ongoing opposition to the results. The statement was consistent with his broader view that both parties have drifted too far to their respective extremes. He sees the refusal to accept democratic outcomes as a symptom of that polarization.
Simmons has also pushed back firmly against the culture of ideological conformity spreading across public life. “This idea of always agreeing with somebody is lunacy,” he said, adding that he can “break bread with anybody other than Nazis.” The comment encapsulates his self-described centrist stance. It prizes independent thought over party loyalty and rejects the pressure to fall in line with any single political tribe.
Simmons finds himself in a rare position among public figures. He openly criticizes celebrities for sharing political opinions while simultaneously doing exactly that — and accepting the professional consequences that come with it.
