What to Know
An legendary rock star thinks celebrities should keep their political opinions to themselves. Kiss legend Gene Simmons bashed celebrities who get political and said they should just focus on acting and singing.
“Basically, shut the (expletive) up,” Simmons told TMZ. “Do your art and shut up. Nobody’s interested in your opinions, that includes me. Who I vote for. Who I like. Who the (expletive) do you think you are?”
He continued, “People in America work hard for a living and they don’t want to be lectured to by people who live in mansions and drive Rolls Royces. It’s time for everybody in the entertainment industry to shut their pie-hole and just do your art. Nobody cares what you think. I don’t.”
The 76-year-old specifically called out actors Ben Stiller and Mark Ruffalo who have been known to criticize President Donald Trump, especially after his airstrikes on Iran.
“What does Mark think about politics? I don’t care,” Simmons chirped. “Or go to Kylie Jenner and ask her what she thinks of the war so far.”
Stiller recently made headlines after the award-winning actor slammed the White House for using a clip from one of his movies. The movie star asked the White House to delete its clip of his 2008 film “Tropic Thunder,” which was used in a video posted via X on March 5 that showed brief seconds of military strikes and scenes from several different movies.
“Hey White House, please remove the Tropic Thunder clip. We never gave you permission and have no interest in being a part of your propaganda machine,” Stiller wrote on X. “War is not a movie.”
Meanwhile Ruffalo told people on X March 2 to call their “Senators and Congress members to say: No war with Iran!”
The actor added, “Two critical votes are happening in both chambers to stop Trump’s illegal, devastating war.”
Simmons has also been open about his political beliefs in recent years.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee predicted Donald Trump’s victory in 2016, calling him “good for the political system” in an interview with Rolling Stone at the time. Months later, Simmons called Trump a “legitimate, upstanding guy” on CNN.
His tone had changed slightly by 2022 when appeared on Bill Maher’s show and said, “The person that I saw first coming into power is not the person I saw within a year or two of that … But I changed, the way lots of people changed.”
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David Cifarelli; masslive.com; (TNS) | ©2026 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit masslive.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
