Less than a week after Gene Simmons’ Rolling Stone interview was published, the KISS co-frontman spoke to Us Weekly and publicly apologized to David Lee Roth for the offending remarks. He brought up his earliest days working with Van Halen, noting that he flew them to New York to record the aforementioned 15-song demo album and “championed the band.” Simmons then touched specifically on his comments to Rolling Stone and admitted that his “stream of consciousness” style might have led to him saying things that he didn’t immediately realize were potentially offensive. “I don’t mean to hurt people’s feelings, and every once in a while, diarrhea of the mouth comes out,” he continued.
Regarding his comparison of present-day Roth to a “bloated, naked Elvis on the bathroom floor,” Simmons stressed that he wasn’t talking about Roth, but he still regrets making those comments. “I didn’t mean to hurt his feelings,” the singer-bassist said. “It reminds me of the guy that gets out of a truck and says, ‘Hey I’m sorry, buddy, I didn’t mean to run you over.’ Well, what the f***’s the difference? You’ve been run over.”
As of this writing, we’re still not sure if Roth accepted Simmons’ apology, but Simmons told 95.5 KLOS (via Rock Celebrities) toward the end of August 2021 that he hasn’t been able to successfully reach out to Roth.
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