On Wednesday, Gene Simmons appeared on both “Fox & Friends” and “Mornings with Maria” on Fox News and Fox Business Network respectively.
When asked by Maria Bartiromo about the allegations against Harvey Weinstein, Simmons offered a lengthy reply:
You know that the lunatics have taken over the insane asylum when respected business news entities like yourself ask guys that look like me, that stick their tongues out and own money bag logos, what I think about Harvey Weinstein. …
I’m a powerful and attractive man, and what I’m about to say is deadly serious. Men are jackasses. And from the time we’re young, we have testosterone — I’m not validating it or defending it — guys need to be trained from their very, very young ages by their mothers and by their loved ones to understand that half the world’s population are female, and they need to be treated with respect.
We don’t get the training — and that’s not a defense. Harvey and Cosby and anybody who may have allegedly done those things should go down all the way to hell so they can become somebody’s girlfriend. I’m just kidding, it’s just a joke.
But women really, en masse, should rise up — the only way you got the vote is not because men want to share it with you, it’s because you started marching and demanding it. You will only get the respect you demand. Our African American brothers and sisters only got, you know, the respect, whatever they’ve got so far, by marching and taking charge of it. And guys like Harvey need to be held accountable if proven guilty in a court of law, no matter what the court of public opinion says because Playboy wound up paying many millions of dollars for alleged rapes and blah blah blah which wound up to be untrue.
So, what I don’t like is that anybody can make a public statement and then people join in … in England, by the way, you’re not allowed to do that. Whatever’s going on in court is held private until the verdict by your peers.
The Daily Beast reports that after his segment, a Fox News source claims that Simmons entered a private meeting on the 14th floor:
“Hey chicks, sue me!” he shouted, and then pulled open his red velvet shirt to reveal his chest and belly, according to the source. Then he starting telling Michael Jackson pedophilia jokes, and then bopped two employees on the head with his book, making derisive comments about their comparative intelligence according to the sound their heads made when struck.
After the alleged outburst was reported to senior staff, Simmons was “permanently banned from the building and will no longer be permitted on any Fox News or Fox Business Network programming,” according to The Daily Beast.