Nikki Sixx Says Gene Simmons Refused To Hug Him

Nikki Sixx recently joined an interview with HardDrive Radio and talked about his upcoming book tour. While he was talking about hugging fans during the book signing, he shared a fun fact about Gene Simmons and his dislike of hugging people.

Mötley Crüe’s bassist and main songwriter Nikki Sixx became The New York Times best-seller for the fourth time when he released ‘The First 21’ on October 19. Normally, after he releases a book, he is more than happy to do a tour, meet fans and sign their books. However, amid the pandemic, the experience became very limited, which he thinks is not fair to the fans.

During the recent interview he joined, Nikki Sixx stated that even though they weren’t allowed to, people would still take pictures because they want to live the whole experience of meeting their idol. Some fans even have a really intense connection with the bassist that they want to hug him. Sixx is not concerned with that because he is a hugger too, and he gladly accepts hugs.

Here is what he stated about his fans in his book tour:

We’re not doing a book tour because I don’t want to give the fans anything less than a full experience. I really enjoy book tours. In some of the cities, we go to, we get over a thousand people, and sometimes we’ll be there from nine in the morning until the stores are like, ‘We legally have to close’ and try to sign as quickly as possible. Things have changed over the years, like on my early book tours and even with ‘The Dirt,’ people line up, and you get a hug, you get the hi-five, and you get the picture, and now it’s gotten a place where they’re trying to keep a little bit more organised.

I remember they were like, ‘We can’t really do the picture thing,’ and then we tried to figure out a way around that so I would be sitting there signing, they would turn, and their friend would take a picture. We had 15 cities for this, and I was really excited about it. It came down to, ‘Well if I want to take photos, I want to high-five.‘ There are the fans that are so connected to me they just want to hug, and I like that. I am a hugger.”

Sixx is also disappointed that there will not be a book tour, but he ended the topic by giving a fun anecdote about Gene Simmons that made Sixx and the host Lou Brutus laugh during the interview. After stating that he is a hugger, he revealed that during the co-headlining tour of KISS and Mötley Crüe in 2012, Sixx went up to Simmons to hug him, but he refused and told him that he is not a hugger. Sixx replied to him by stating that in this tour, he will be hugged a lot so he better become a hugger.

Here is how he told the story about Simmons:

“I remember I went to hug Gene Simmons one day, and he goes ‘I’m not a hugger.’ I go, ‘We’re doing a co-headline tour, so you’re going to get hugged up a lot.’ You know me hugging on Gene, ‘I’m not a hugger.’ ‘You are now.’

You can watch the whole interview below.