Trip to Israel Makes Gene Simmons Miss His Dad

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Back in March, The Shmooze reported that the A&E reality show “Gene Simmons Family Jewels” was coming to Simmons’s native Israel. Now we have a glimpse of what Simmons, the former KISS star, found there.

It seems that he was overcome by regret for his estrangement from his father, Feri Weitz, who left him and his Holocaust-survivor mother when he was a child. During a visit to his father’s grave, Simmons became very emotional. “I am so stupid. Why didn’t I go to see him before he died?” he asked.

Speaking later, he commented on his refusal to contact his dad: “I wanted to prove to myself and to everybody else and to my father that I didn’t need him, so once I proved it and became successful, I wanted to stand stubbornly on my pride and not move.”

At the graveside, Simmons read a letter that his father had left. It said that he followed the star’s career through the media, and said that he was very proud of his children. “They are all beautiful and talented,” he wrote.