Ace Frehley said he heard from Paul Stanley shortly after demanding an apology from his former Kiss bandmate last week — but all he received was a “Fuck you” during a five-second phone call.
As promised last week, Frehley returned to Eddie Trunk’s Trunk Nation today to offer an update on his ongoing war of words with Stanley and Gene Simmons. The Spaceman previously threatened to air “some dirt” on his ex-colleagues if Stanley did not apologize within a week for the disparaging remarks he made during a recent Howard Stern interview.
When asked if Stanley contacted him, Frehley said, “Yes, he did, not long after the show was over. I was blindsided by the phone call. … But instead of an apology, I got a five-second phone call which said, ‘Fuck you, Ace. I’m not going to apologize,’ and hung up. … He wasn’t even man enough to let me give a rebuttal and explain why I’m so upset or anything like that.”
Frehley said he has been in touch with Kiss manager Doc Mcghee “at least three or four times” since the phone call. ”I told Doc McGhee this whole story, and you know what he came back with? He said, ‘Paul said he never called you.'” The guitarist also sent screenshots of his phone call log to Trunk to confirm the conversation took place, which Trunk verified.
Despite not receiving his apology, Frehley opted not to air any dirt on his former bandmates after all.
“I spoke to several good friends of mine who are God-fearing people and I go to AA [Alcoholics Anonymous] meetings with, and they said, ‘Don’t ever sink to their level. That’s what they do. That’s what they’ve been doing for years. Why are you going to sink to their level?'” Frehley said. “So then I came to the realization that I don’t even have to bring up anything that I have hidden away in my attorney’s safety deposit box. I can just talk about things that they’ve said about me in black and white. They can’t come after me after that because they said it. It’s in black and white.”
Frehley’s current feud with his ex-bandmates erupted last month when Kiss appeared on The Howard Stern Show. When the radio veteran asked why Stanley and Simmons refused to play alongside fellow founding members Frehley and Peter Criss at the band’s 2014 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction, Stanley replied, ”Because if you saw people onstage who looked like Kiss but sounded like that, maybe we should be called Piss.”
Frehley responded to these comments during last week’s Trunk Nation appearance and reiterated many of his points during today’s follow-up call. “Those guys have been bad-mouthing me since I quit the very first time in 1981, 1982,” he said. “Calling me a drug addict, calling me an alcoholic, saying I’m unemployable, I’m undependable.”
The guitarist additionally noted that he’s maintained a multi-decade solo career, has been sober for nearly 20 years and has released more new music in that time than his old band. He then issued an ultimatum to Stanley.
“I’m going to make a statement to Paul Stanley right now… I’m telling you that I want a formal apology for what you said, and a retraction and an apology within seven days,” Frehley declared. “And if I don’t get that within seven days, I’m coming back on Ed Trunk’s show — if you’ll have me, Ed — and I’m going to tell some dirt that nobody knows about Paul and Gene, that I’ve always kept to myself because I’m the kind of guy who doesn’t talk about this. I like to talk about positive stuff.”
Frehley added that he’s written a 120-page manuscript detailing Stanley and Simmons’ alleged indiscretions. ”My attorney has it in a safety deposit box,” he said. “God forbid anything happens to me, my attorney is instructed to release it to The New York Times, Rolling Stone, API, everybody. So they can’t intimidate me with trying to hurt me or saying, ‘You better not say anything about me live on the radio,’ because then they’re totally screwed. Their careers will be ruined. … Those guys aren’t squeaky clean. You know how many lawsuits girls have had against Gene?”
Despite their ongoing feud, Frehley reiterated during his latest Trunk Nation call that he could still be convinced to join his ex-bandmates onstage at Kiss’ final shows at New York’s Madison Square Garden this December — for a price. “Money motivates me, just like it motivates them,” he said. “Look, if I got a quarter of a million dollars a night [for the final two shows] and I can make a half a million dollars for playing three or four songs, five songs, I’d take the money.”
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