The rock star opened up about his sobriety and recalled the one time he got high after mistakenly eating several brownies laced with cannabis in a recent interview on theYour Mom’s House with Christina P. and Tom Segurapodcast.
After Simmons, 74, claimed he’d “never been drunk or high” in his life, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member’s sonNick(who also appeared on the podcast) brought up “one accidental story” in which his father did partake in marijuana.
Gene Simmons performs in Italy in July 2022.Francesco Prandoni/Getty
According to the legendary performer, the incident happened in 1976 at a party following a record-breaking number of KISS concerts in Detroit. “I’ve never before or since had anything like that happen to me. I wasn’t prepared for it,” he said of the unexpected high.
Upon arriving to the party, Gene spotted an area filled with sweet treats — his “drug of choice,” said Nick, 35.
“The whole room is full, and I’m just seeing the brownies piled on it, and I love that stuff,” explained Gene. “Everyone’s [like] ‘Let’s smoke, let’s put things up our ass.’ No, just give me cake.”
Gene Simmons in Las Vegas in October 2021.Ethan Miller/Getty
He recalled a woman passing around the brownies at the party. “It didn’t hurt that she wasn’t bad looking — this is before I met your mom,” Gene joked to Nick, referencing wifeShannon Tweed, whom the rocker married in 2011 after 28 years of dating.
The woman holding the brownies then approached Gene, who asked for another one. “Then I started, like a dog with a bone, just following her around. ‘Can I have another one?’ ‘You want another one?’ And I just kept eating it — six,” he detailed.
Eventually, however, Gene’s high began kicking in. “The room started to get bigger, and my head started to get smaller — all the way down to the size of an olive on my shoulder,” he said. “I remember this — I started to open my eyes so that people would think I was normal.”
Gene Simmons performs in Germany in June 2023.Sven Hoppe/picture alliance via Getty
Sven Hoppe/picture alliance via Getty
He felt as though his hands “ballooned up like cartoons” and felt uneasy, until he ran intoCreemmagazine co-founder Jaan Uhelszki — who spoke toClassic Rockabout the ill-fated evening in 2019.
Uhelszki’s recollection of events was slightly different, as she claimed the party was held in 1974 and said Gene only ate three brownies, though “one would have put you over the top.”
Gene told theYour Mom’s Househosts he and Uhelszki left the party and took a limo to a restaurant, so he could quench his thirst with a beverage. “It’s filled with neighborhood folks who are there at night grabbing a burger and stuff after the show, and I’m dressed in leather, no kidding, and they all turn around,” he said.
Gene Simmons, Shannon Tweed, Nick Simmons and Sophie Simmons in Westwood in October 2018.Steve Granitz/WireImage
“I’m thinking,They’re all looking at me because my head is small.So I try to make myself bigger,” continued the rock icon. “And I go up, and the guy goes, ‘What’ll ya have?’ And I go — yelling — ‘Can I have a glass of milk?!’”
He remembered going back to the hotel and thinking his room key was “enormous,” quipping on the podcast that he also felt his genitals had “never been as big in my life.”
After telling the story, Gene said he wanted “to be serious for a second” and explain the real reason behind his chosen sobriety.
“I never wanted to get high or drunk because of my mother. She was in a concentration camp when she was 14 years of age, and I never wanted to break her heart,” he noted. “I was always aware I never wanted to disappoint her — there was enough aggravation. So I never smoked cigarettes, never got high, never got drunk.”
source: people.com
