Peter Criss Fires Back Over Gene Simmons' 'Ridiculous' Claim

By Editorial Staff | Published: Jan 15, 2026 4:49 PM EST

Peter Criss has called out his former KISS bandmate Gene Simmons and set the record straight over Gene's recent "ridiculous and very uncalled for" claims that Peter did not write his signature ballad "Beth".

Gene made headlines after he claimed that the original KISS drummer did not co-write the 1976 hit song that appeared on their "Destroyer" album, which was the group's biggest hit single.

Simmons said in a recent interview, "Peter had nothing to do with that song. He sang it...The mythology of 'Beth' is exactly that: mythology. The real story is Peter was lucky enough to be in the same place at the same time as a guy who wrote a song called 'Beth.'"

Billboard reached out to Peter to get his reaction and he told them, "Gene wouldn't know how the song was originally written because Gene wasn't there from the conception of the song in the late '60s and he wasn't there for the completion of the song with Bob Ezrin. Gene's statements are ridiculous and very uncalled for; he talks about things that he doesn't know about.

"What Gene's getting wrong is that as the singing songwriter, I wrote the melody and creating the phrasing for the song that's on the original demo 'Beck' with Stan Penridge [his late bandmate from the pre-KISS Chelsea]. Out of Stan's little black book what remained on the reworked version of 'Beth' is Stan's original verse and chorus, and my core melody remains on the reworked composition. The core melody was expanded with Bob's orchestration symphony and musical genius. Bob and I sat at the piano at the Record Plant studio working out the song. Bob Ezrin changed the tempo and made it slower, and I worked on changing some of the second verse and the phrasing with the slower tempo."

Peter provided more details and they also shared Bob Ezrin's reaction here.