Gene Simmons "apologizes" for saying depressed people should kill themselves

A nearly-mandatory part of growing up is accepting that at least one of your childhood idols not only is an asshole, but always has been an asshole. Thus it is with Gene Simmons.

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Aside from the inane dishonesty of the fauxpology, the assertion that having your advertisers consider dropping you because the cost/benefit doesn’t add up for them is ‘political correctness’, complete with implications of the repressive hand of Political Commissars enforcing orthodoxy and so on, is as insufferable as it is common.

It’s so common that I’m actually not quite sure what to make of it: is it purely a cynical complaint, used merely because it’s known to work; or do people like Simmons not understand that, as entertainers, it’s their business to get up on stage and pander to the audience. Your rights to freedom of speech and whatnot are wholly unaffected; but if you pick a career in entertaining people you voluntarily agree that failure to be entertaining means a bad performance review.

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What some people call political correctness, others call simple human decency. I think the phrase actually originated as a self-parody among Marxists, but it’s not really funny any more.

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What a charming POS. As long as we’re detailing his many faults, I’d like to add ‘grossly misogynist’ to the tally.

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I think it was Neil Gaiman who observed that ‘political correctness’ was a synonym for ‘respecting other people’.

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Gee, thanks for clearing that up, Gene.

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A sentence so nice it deserves to appear twice.

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It seems to me the only people who use the term “political correctness” anymore are those like Simmons, who think it means “I don’t like being called out on things I shouldn’t have said”.

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No surprise that Gene Simmons is making an ass of himself again, but I was happy to see the link in the article to Nikki Sixx’s views on depression. Mr. Sixx deserves credit for taking on the cause of depression awareness. That guy has been through the wringer.

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It could have been worse. He could have suggested depressed people listen to Kiss. That would have been really cruel

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I always assumed it was just an act, his playing the “Gene Simmons” character… but nope. Asshole believes his own bullshit. His interview with Terry Gross was one of the most abhorrent things I’ve ever heard.

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Oh my god that interview was priceless! Both of them immediately reduced to themselves at their worst and at one another’s throats. It was truly a train wreck of an interview.

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A few years ago, the comic series KISS Psycho Circus was a big guilty pleasure for me; the art was nice and it was adorably campy. I then made the mistake of reading a bit too much about Simmons and it completely ruined it for me. I can’t look at it anymore without being reminded of how thoroughly unpleasant this person is and feeling downright icky. I eventually lost the collection during a move and I’m certainly not replacing it.

Finding out an artist is a huge asshole really sucks. It feels like someone offering you candy, then quipping that they didn’t wash their hands after their last dump.

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Lexicat and @da_Bird: yup, couldn’t agree with the both of you more. True colors were exposed in that interview.

I love that interview, just because it is like two worlds colliding - he is just such an ass and she is just so flustered by him.

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Also, Motley Crüe > Kiss

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Absolutely. Another term for “political incorrectness” is rudeness. There is room for rudeness sometimes, in comedy, in art, in commentary on the powerful. But being rude to the weak… that’s just pathetic.

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Absolutely in return to you, too.

And I think it’s even worse than pathetic rudeness; it’s also denying the full humanity of those whom one is labeling with noxious terminology.

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I’m almost surprised he didn’t try to charge people for his apology as well.

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