report<\/a> lists the cause of death as a blunt trauma injury of the head due to a fall. It said a separate toxicology report on Frehley\u2019s blood would be issued.<\/p>\n\u201cThe saddest thing \u2013 you reap what you shall sow unfortunately,\u201d said the outspoken Simmons, 76, the co-lead singer and bassist for the band.<\/p>\n
KISS bassist and co-lead singer Gene Simmons credits \u201cbad decisions\u201d with contributing to longtime guitarist Ace Frehley\u2019s death from a fall AP<\/p>\n
Simmons, who is in DC to collect a Kennedy Center Honor with surviving band members and to testify in the Senate to promote legislation to require large radio stations pay royalties to performers, described attending Frehley\u2019s private funeral service on Oct. 22.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt breaks my heart. Peter Criss, our founding drummer, Paul [Stanley] and myself went to the funeral, open casket. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just heartbreaking. Saddest of all perhaps is that Ace just couldn\u2019t stay alive long enough to sit there proudly at the Kennedy Center and listen to \u2013 I can\u2019t even tell you who\u2019s going to come out \u2026 really impressive people, just to say how much KISS meant to them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat can you say \u2013 sad.\u201d<\/p>\n
The two on-again, off-again bandmates feuded at times in public, after rocketing to fame together. They are seen here jamming in 2018 at Walt Grace Vintage in Miami, Florida Getty Images<\/p>\n
Simmons previously spoke to People about the pressures that may have kept fellow band members from intervening with Frehley.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s just continue doing the tour because you want to get through it for selfish reasons because it\u2019s working, and the chicks, and the money, and you don\u2019t want to ruin anything,\u201d he told the magazine. \u201cMeantime, somebody who might be your brother is ruining their life by bad decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Frehley published a searing online post in 2019 blasting Simmons for comments at the time admonishing him for his drinking and alleged unreliability.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour slanderous remarks about my bad habits over the years has cost me millions of dollars and now that I\u2019m over 12-years sober you\u2019re still saying I can\u2019t be trusted to play a whole nights show! Well that\u2019s exactly what I\u2019ve been doing for the last 12-years with different configurations of \u2018The Ace Frehley Band\u2019 to you and Paul\u2019s dismay!\u201d he wrote. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe refused [advice] from people that cared about him \u2013 including yours truly \u2013 to try to change his lifestyle,\u201d Simmons said of Frehley (r), who laid down slashing guitar licks on KISS tracks Houston Chronicle via Getty Images<\/p>\n
Frehley died of a brain bleed on Oct. 16 at age 74 days after suffering a fall Shutterstock \/ Debby Wong<\/p>\n
He warned at the time that without an apology that \u201cthe s*** will hit the fan and they\u2019ll [sic] be no stopping it. It\u2019s on!\u201d Rolling Stone reported at the time.<\/p>\n
Frehley was charged<\/a> with driving under the influence, reckless driving, and leaving the scene after a 1983 car chase on the Bronx River Parkway in his 1981 DeLorean. He was required to spend two weeks in a hospital detox and to attend AA meetings.<\/p>\nAfter helping found the band in 1973, Frehley left KISS in 1982, rejoined for a reunion tour in 1996 and remained in the band until 2002. The bandmates put a coda on any past feuds as Simmons and Paul Stanley, both from Queens, joined Peter Criss, from Brooklyn, to honor Frehley, from the Bronx.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A series of \u201cbad decisions\u201d by KISS guitarist Ace Frehley contributed to his death, band frontman Gene Simmons…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334025,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[236,88,91189,16517,17715,1253,194],"class_list":["post-334024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-falls","tag-gene-simmons","tag-kiss","tag-musicians","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}