Gene Simmons opens up about obsession with ‘cookies, chocolates, cake’
The KISS rocker admitted he had started to limit his favourite sweet treats after decades of eating whatever he liked, thanks to a heavily active performance schedule.
“When I’m on tour, it doesn’t matter,” he told Men’s Health Magazine. “I’d eat cheesecake every day because I’m wearing 40 lb. of armour, 7-inch platform heels… You don’t have to do anything. Within two hours you will be exhausted. The amount of calories burned on stage, it’s like a heavy workout. So I could eat anything.”
Gene revealed he could take or leave even the fanciest savoury foods, but struggled to resist sweets of all kinds.
“I don’t really care if it’s pasta or shmasta, or foie gras and anything with a French name…I really don’t care,” he said. “I love cake. Cookies, chocolates, cake. It’s about as much fun as I can have with my pants on.”
However, Gene admitted, an ageing metabolism meant he could no longer indulge his sweet tooth as often or as extravagantly as he used to.
“I’ve got to watch it. You know, my girlish figure and everything,” he said.
“And the older I get… I’m 76 now. The problem is your metabolism, it slows down like a tick-tock of an old clock. So at 76, I can’t have as much as I like.”
Gene added his love of sugary foods was offset by the fact he does not drink. As the son of a Holocaust survivor, the singer explained, he felt an obligation to look after his body. His late mother, Flora, escaped a World War II German prison camp.
“She was a survivor of Nazi Germany’s concentration camps at 14 years of age and I never wanted to break her heart,” Gene shared.
“I’m her only child. So this idea that you could be a loser, not be able to earn a living and destroy yourself. I mean, she’d give her life to prevent anybody from hurting me, but it’s okay for me to hurt myself? That’s crazy. No.”
