KISS icon Gene Simmons, who has long argued that musicians and actors shouldn’t publicly share their political opinions, weighed in on Billie Eilish’s recent comments describing America as “stolen land.” His remarks were shared in an interview with Andrew Gold.
When asked directly about Eilish’s statement, Simmons offered a detailed historical response, pointing to conflicts between Native American tribes prior to European colonization.
Asked, “Do you see the Billie Eilish thing about America being on stolen land?” Simmons replied:
“Well, any Indian tribe that was at war with any other Indian tribe, which means all the Indian tribes tortured and killed each other, there’s no such thing as you’re living on bar land.”
“The Apache were living on Comanche land and the Comanche killed the other one. They all fought and took over their own lands and took slaves, by the way.”
He went on to argue that grouping Native American tribes together overlooks significant cultural and linguistic differences among them.
“And so this idea that it’s all what the Canadians called First Nations, well, yeah, if you make a general observation that they were all Indians in the general term, but the Mohawks and the Apache have nothing to do with each other. Even over the hill, they had different languages, different customs,” he continued.
Simmons then drew a comparison to historical conflicts in Europe and the Middle East to make his broader point.
“It’s like looking at Europe, even though you know, you go 300 miles that way and it’s a different language, different culture. That’s why you guys have been killing each other for 2,000 years. And you’re worshiping the same God, which is nuts. You know, they’re all Christians, but Muslims are the same, too. You got the Shia against the Sunni and Wahhabist. And then, of course, you’ve got the Coptics there who were in Egypt first. So, it gets complex, but I’ll drown you with information you don’t want to know.”
Simmons is far from the only voice weighing in on Eilish’s original statement. The remark itself has carried a much longer trail of controversy than a single interview clip suggests.
Eilish first made the comment during her acceptance speech at the 2026 Grammys in February. She wore an “ICE out” badge while accepting Song of the Year. Addressing the audience, she said, “As grateful as I feel, I honestly don’t feel like I need to say anything but that no one is illegal on stolen land.” The line was widely read as a rebuke of federal immigration enforcement. It set off months of debate that has followed her ever since.
The backlash resurfaced over the summer when Eilish officiated her brother Finneas O’Connell’s wedding at San Ysidro Ranch in Montecito, California. Critics quickly pointed out that the venue sits on land historically tied to the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians. Social media users seized on the apparent contradiction, with comments like “Was this on stolen land? Hello Indians” circulating widely.
The controversy escalated further when Elon Musk publicly mocked Eilish over what he called her hypocrisy. Musk accused her of criticizing capitalism and decrying “stolen land” while simultaneously launching a new perfume, Eilish Intense, and living in multimillion-dollar properties in Los Angeles. He went as far as asking his AI chatbot Grok to roast her, writing that she “critiques capitalism and ‘stolen land’ while launching Eilish Intense perfume and living in multi-million-dollar LA properties on that same land.”
Supporters of Eilish have pushed back against the criticism, arguing that her comments raised legitimate awareness about Indigenous land history and immigration policy, regardless of her personal lifestyle. Still, the repeated flare-ups suggest the singer’s original Grammys remark has become a lasting flashpoint. Public figures across the political spectrum, from Simmons to Musk, continue to invoke it months after she first spoke the words.
