GENE SIMMONS: ‘I Stand By Every Word I Said’ On ‘Dancing With The Stars’

 

KISS bassist/vocalist Gene Simmons says that he stands by “every word” he said when he served as a guest judge, alongside Carrie Ann Inaba, Bruno Tonioli and Derek Hough, for Tuesday evening’s (October 8) “Hair Metal Night” episode of “Dancing With The Stars”. The episode saw the 11 pairs return to the dance floor with routines to iconic rock and roll anthems.

Instead of simply offering a critique of everyone’s dance routines, Gene spent much of his time commenting on the contestants’ physical appearances. At one point he said: “This is a brand-new experience for me and it’s difficult to look at you and to figure out which one is more hot, hot, hot.”

Gene then declared that pro dancer Witney Carson is “one of the more beautiful women on the planet” and said of actor/singer Chandler Kinney, “You’ve fogged up my glasses. I don’t know what to tell you. You move me, not just with your gyrations and so on, but your beautiful face and how you were into the emotion of it.”

On Wednesday, a DailyMail.com cameraman approached Simmons in Los Angeles and asked him about the criticism he received for his comments on “Dancing With The Stars”. The KISS legend responded: “All media is clickbait. I stand by every word I said. I had a great time. The contestants were great. The show was great. Watch the show. It was a lot of fun. But media? Everybody’s got something to say. Watch the show. It was a lot of fun. Everybody had a great time.”

Tuesday’s episode of “Dancing With The Stars” began with the opening dance to KISS‘s “Rock And Roll All Nite”, which was choreographed by Pasha Pashkov and featured WHITESNAKE and TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA guitarist Joel Hoekstra.

The dancers competed to classic hair metal songs from the 1980s, including BON JOVI‘s “Livin’ On A Prayer” and “You Give Love A Bad Name”, AEROSMITH‘s “Walk This Way”, WARRANT‘s “Cherry Pie”, EUROPE‘s “The Final Countdown”, TWISTED SISTER‘s “We’re Not Gonna Take It”, QUIET RIOT‘s “Cum On Feel The Noize”, POISON‘s “Nothin’ But A Good Time”, WHITESNAKE‘s “Here I Go Again” and SCORPIONS‘ “Rock You Like A Hurricane”.

According to Forbes, Simmons later received criticism for his comments throughout the night, with some viewers labeling him “creepy” because of his at-sometimes superficial feedback that focused largely on looks and appearances. The musician gave Phaedra Parks a five while the other judges all gave her sevens, causing the crowd to boo as Parks and her partner, Val Chmerkovskiy, made incredulous faces. Simmons‘s score was all the more confusing given the fact that he didn’t give Parks any negative feedback. He told Parks and Chmerkovskiy that he was “a big fan of the bad-boy-and-the-bad girl” dynamic of their routine. Simmons also received a chorus of boos after revealing his score for Reginald VelJohnson, who danced a cha cha to “I Wanna Rock” by TWISTED SISTER with pro partner Emma Slater.

“Hey Reggie, you’ve got a beautiful woman right beside you who can twist it and turn it and knows how to move it and all that,” Simmons told VelJohnson prior to the tallies being announced. “But I want to tell you, as a guy that’s been on the stage for half a century around the world, I’m kind of a big deal, Reggie. It’s all in the attitude. And you’ve got something in that beautiful face. They love you.”

On X (formerly Twitter),one user ripped into Simmons, writing: “hey gene! just wanna remind you that this is a dancing show, NOT a beauty contest. respectfully never come back pls and thank you #DWTS”. Another user wrote “phaedra getting a 5 but he gave brooks a 10… gene simmons count ur days. weird and gross comments all night #DWTS”.

Some blamed “Dancing With The Stars” for inviting Simmons on the show in the first place. “You can really tell that this guest judge is racist and sexist based off the scores that he’s giving!” one person wrote. “This is absolutely ridiculous and disgusting shame on you guys for having him as a judge!”