Gene Simmons is anything but sympathetic when it comes to depression.
“Drug addicts and alcoholics are always, ‘The world is a harsh place.’ My mother was in a concentration camp in Nazi Germany,” the Kiss front man, 64, said in an interview with SongFacts.com last month. “I don’t want to hear f–k all about ‘the world as a harsh place.’ She gets up every day, smells the roses and loves life.”
While that may have sounded harsh, things soon turned much worse.
“And for a putz, 20-year-old kid to say, ‘I’m depressed, I live in Seattle,'” he continued. “F–k you, then kill yourself.”
Simmons, who last charted a single in 1990, added more fuel to the fire.
“I never understand, because I always call them on their bluff. I’m the guy who says ‘Jump!’ when there’s a guy on top of a building who says, ‘That’s it, I can’t take it anymore, I’m going to jump.’ Are you kidding?” he said. “Why are you announcing it? Shut the f–k up, have some dignity and jump! You’ve got the crowd.”
As expected, the unfeeling statement provoked furor online, including from Mötley Crüe member Nikki Sixx (via The Huffington Post).
Earlier this week, Simmons, an Israeli immigrant, said that newcomers to America need to “learn to speak g—–n English.”
“I’m actually saying the thing that needs to be said because the politically-correct climate is bulls–t,” he told HuffPost Live.