Gene Simmons backs Donald Sterling

Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling has received a lot of backlash for the racist comments he was recorded making. While Sterling has become a villain, he has at least one supporter in Kiss rocker Gene Simmons.

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While Simmons doesn’t necessarily condone what Sterling said, his point is that many people make comments like that in joke form, or when drunk, and the fact that it was the privacy of his home was violated.

“Everybody [says] jokes that are off- color, or when they’re drunk…He was ambushed,” Simmons said in an interview with Rolling Stone. “I think he should have done penance and paid a fine. Here’s what’s going to happen. They’re going to go after Sterling and he’s going to put a few million dollars out there, because he can afford it – and he’s going to ask the paparazzi out there to find videos of all the other team members talking trash and racist rants. And then it’s open season.

“And if, because you say an off-color joke or make a racist rant privately, that causes you to lose a job – nobody would have a job,” he continued. “Black people do it, Jews do it, Christians do it – everybody does it. It’s called America. Free speech. Even if free speech insults other people. Privately. Publicly, that’s different. I’m on the side of free speech in the privacy of your own home or privacy of the situation. Big brother has finally crawled in bed with us.”