KISS co-founder Gene Simmons says a long string of “bad decisions” played a role in guitarist Ace Frehley’s death, telling The Post that substance abuse and years of risky behavior likely contributed to the fatal fall that ended the rock legend’s life.
Frehley died on Oct. 16 at age 74, days after tumbling down the stairs in his home studio in Morristown, New Jersey. The fall caused a brain bleed that doctors couldn’t reverse. While the official report from the Morris County medical examiner lists blunt head trauma as the cause of death, a full toxicology report is still pending.
Simmons didn’t hold back in sharing how devastating — and painfully avoidable — the tragedy feels.
“He refused advice from people who cared about him, including yours truly, to change his lifestyle,” Simmons said. “Falling down the stairs doesn’t kill you. There may have been other issues, and it breaks my heart.”
Simmons, now 76, attended Frehley’s private funeral on Oct. 22 alongside Paul Stanley and Peter Criss. He described the service as “heartbreaking,” especially knowing that Frehley wasn’t alive to see KISS honored at the Kennedy Center this year.
“Saddest of all is that Ace didn’t stay alive long enough to sit proudly at the Kennedy Center and hear some really impressive people talk about what KISS meant to them,” Simmons said. “What can you say — sad.”
Despite decades of success together, Simmons and Frehley had a turbulent history. They reunited musically at times, feuded publicly at others, and spent years clashing over issues that ranged from personal behavior to band commitments. Frehley even blasted Simmons in a fiery 2019 post, accusing him of sabotaging his career with repeated comments about substance abuse.
Frehley insisted he had been sober for over a decade and performing full shows without issue. “Your slanderous remarks about my bad habits over the years has cost me millions,” he wrote at the time.
Frehley’s struggles, however, were well documented long before that. He was arrested in 1983 after a wild car chase in his DeLorean on the Bronx River Parkway and was ordered to undergo detox and attend AA meetings. Even as he remained one of rock’s most iconic guitarists, the volatility of his lifestyle became part of his legend.
Frehley helped found KISS in 1973, left in 1982, returned for the blockbuster reunion tour in 1996, and stayed until 2002. But in the end, Simmons said the band put all old conflicts aside to honor their longtime bandmate — Queens, Brooklyn, and Bronx roots standing together one last time.
“Ace was family,” Simmons said. “And losing family like this hurts.”
Now, how is Simmons going to merchandise THIS like he does everything else ?
Gene “how can I make a buck from this” Simmons !