In a politically charged move, the legendary rock band KISS has been named among the first recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors under the direct purview of President Donald Trump. The prestigious award, announced on Wednesday, creates a fascinating and potentially awkward situation, as it will honor a band whose co-founder, Gene Simmons, has a long and complicated public history with the President, evolving from a one-time supporter to a fierce critic.
The announcement was made by President Trump himself at a press conference at the performing arts center, which he has recently overhauled, ousting its previous leadership and filling the board with his own loyalists. Calling the new class of honorees an “outstanding group,” Trump confirmed that KISS will be celebrated alongside country music star George Strait, actor Sylvester Stallone, singer Gloria Gaynor, and actor Michael Crawford at the 48th annual gala this December.
The selection of KISS is particularly noteworthy given Gene Simmons‘ dramatic public shift in his opinion of the President. After Trump‘s 2016 election, Simmons, who was a contestant on Trump‘s reality show The Celebrity Apprentice, was openly supportive.
“I was happy that Trump won,” he said in a 2022 interview. “I didn’t want Hillary. I thought, ‘Oh, a businessman is coming in. He understands how to run things.'”
However, that support quickly soured. “The person that I saw first coming into power is not the person I saw within a year or two of that… I changed, the way lots of people changed,” he later clarified.
In recent years, his criticism has become increasingly harsh. In a 2022 interview, Simmons accused Trump of getting “all the cockroaches to rise to the top” and allowing racism and conspiracy theories to become mainstream. He has also blamed the former president for “The Big Lie” and a “disease” that has “infected a large portion of the population.” This public criticism followed the band’s decision to turn down an invitation to perform at Trump‘s 2017 inauguration because, as Simmons said at the time, it was “not a good idea.”
The upcoming Kennedy Center Honors ceremony, which President Trump will also host and produce, will now place the two figures in the same room for one of America’s highest cultural awards. The event will be closely watched, not just to celebrate the band’s immense contributions to American culture, but to see the public interaction between the President and the rock star who went from his reality show boardroom to become one of his most prominent and outspoken critics.
