Gene Simmons: I slept with 4800 women during KISS days

20 May 2016

Gene Simmons has slept with 4,800 women.

Gene Simmons

The 66-year-old rocker, who is most famed for fronting the hugely successful rock band KISS, revealed the shocking number of trysts he's enjoyed in the sack with "groupies" during his rock 'n' roll days.

He said: "I didn't do drugs in the crazy times but I did do sex. Did I sleep with 4,800 women? So they tell me. I did have the Polaroids to prove it, oh yes."

The 'Lick It Up' hitmaker finally married his partner of 28 years, the former Playboy model Shannon Tweed, in 2011 and the couple gathered the evidence of Gene's wild days and "burned" them as a sign of their commitment to one another.

He added: "Most of them were burned. Shannon and I got together with them and we had a ritual."

Nowadays, the singer and actor is a changed man and says it all turned around for him when he and Shannon, 59, had their children Sophie, 23 and Nick, 27.

He told The Sun newspaper: "I never knew what a big deal it was before Shannon and I had kids. I never cared about it, I didn't want to get married or have kids. But when they were born I was at the hospital crying like a 12-year-old girl."

Gene would paint his face black and white, stick out his freakishly long tongue and wear outrageous outfits on stage, and is aware he made his kids cringe over the years.

He said: "When they were younger, they would see me performing on stage and say, 'Oh God, there's dad sticking his tongue out again.'"

The singer formed KISS in 1973 in New York City with his pal Paul Stanley and the band - along with current members Eric Singer and Tommy Thayer - were inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in 2014.

Speaking of the their huge success - which includes collecting more gold albums than any other band in America - Gene said: "Have Kiss sold millions of records? Yes. Are we are the luckiest b******s in the world? You're goddam right we are. I feel like the man on top of the highest mountain in the world, shouting out at the top of his lungs, 'Isn't this great. How did we get up here?'"