Gene Simmons, the bassist and vocalist with 70s horror-rock group Kiss, has acknowledged being a “horrible” driver after he crashed his SUV after reportedly passing out at the wheel and ended up in the hospital in Malibu, California.
“Thanks, everybody, for the kind wishes,” Simmons posted on social media. “I’m completely fine. I had a slight fender bender. It happens. Especially to those of us were [sic] horrible drivers. And that’s me. All is well.”
Los Angeles county sheriff deputies responded to a call about a black Lincoln Navigator striking a parked vehicle on the Pacific Coast Highway, the sheriff’s department said.
The driver, who was not named, “might have suffered a medical emergency before the crash”, the department added, saying the adult male was taken to a local hospital for treatment.
Simmons’s wife Shannon Tweed told NBC4 Los Angeles that the 76-year-old rocker, who is known as The Demon, was recovering at home.
Tweed told the station that her husband’s vehicle had crossed several lanes of traffic in the accident. She said doctors had changed his medications recently and told him he needed to drink more water.
The band sold millions of records in 1970s, putting on sell-out pyrotechnic stadium shows. “They wanted to dress like comic-book superheroes and write football-terrace anthems like Slade. Out of such dumb genius, vast fortunes are made,” noted Tim Clifford in a review of Simmons’s autobiography Kiss and Make-up.
A representative for Kiss told Billboard that Simmons was “already back to work”.
