HOLLYWOOD BOMBSHELL: “HE USED ME… I LET HIM!”…. Peter Criss at 79 REVEALS KISS Betrayal Fans Can’t Believe It!

When Peter Criss sat down for his first in-depth interview in years, no one expected what would come next.

At 79 years old, the original drummer of KISS has seen it all — the glory, the chaos, and the collapse.

But as the cameras rolled and the questions began, Criss leaned forward, his voice low and steady, and said six words that sent shockwaves through the rock world.

“He used me… and I let him.”

The silence that followed was heavy.

For decades, fans had wondered what really went wrong inside the band that once defined the meaning of rock stardom.

Now, Criss seemed ready to tell it all.

He spoke not as the Catman — his famous onstage persona — but as Peter, the man who helped build an empire and then watched it slip away.

“I gave everything I had to KISS,” he said. “The blood, the sweat, the music — it was my life. But somewhere along the way, it stopped being about the music. It became about control.”

Criss described the early days with a kind of bittersweet nostalgia.

Four young musicians, broke but driven, painting their faces and chasing a dream that no one believed in.

They played every dive bar that would have them, sleeping in vans, eating whatever they could afford, and living for the moment they’d finally break through.

And when they did, it was explosive.

KISS became larger than life — the fire, the makeup, the spectacle — a machine that turned rebellion into a brand.

But behind the stage lights and roaring crowds, things were beginning to fracture.

“The bigger we got, the smaller I felt,” Criss said. “Suddenly, it wasn’t about four guys anymore. It was about two.”

He didn’t say their names at first, but everyone knew who he meant.

Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons — the band’s frontmen, the businessmen, the voices that came to define the KISS empire.

Criss’ eyes darkened as he spoke of how decisions were made without him, how songs he helped shape were rewritten, and how the camaraderie that once bound them began to fade.

“There was a time I would’ve taken a bullet for those guys,” he said quietly. “Then one day, I realized they’d already shot me in the back.”

He paused, breathing deeply before continuing.

“But the truth is — I let them. I let them because I loved the band more than I loved myself.”

It was a confession that hit like a drumbeat in the silence that followed.

For years, fans had heard the rumors — fights, walkouts, and legal battles — but few ever heard Peter’s side with such raw honesty.

He admitted his own mistakes, too.

“There were nights I wasn’t my best,” he said. “I drank too much, I fought too hard, I made it easy for them to paint me as the problem. But deep down, I just wanted to be heard.”

The turning point, Criss revealed, came during the late 1970s, when fame was at its peak and trust was at its lowest.

The music that once united them had become a battlefield.

“Every studio session felt like a war zone,” he said. “They didn’t want my input anymore. I was just the drummer — that’s what they made me feel like. But KISS wasn’t built by two men. It was built by four.”

As he spoke, there was no bitterness in his tone — only exhaustion, and a kind of peace that comes with finally letting go.

“I’ve spent years being angry,” he admitted. “But at some point, you realize the anger doesn’t change the past. I was part of something incredible. And yeah, I got burned. But I also got to live the dream.”

Criss smiled faintly then, the kind of smile that carries both pain and pride.

He talked about the fans — the ones who still write to him, the ones who show up wearing the Catman makeup, the ones who remind him why it all mattered.

“They’re the reason I don’t regret it,” he said. “Because no matter what happened behind the scenes, the music reached people. That’s what lasts.”

But when asked if he’d ever forgive the men he once called brothers, his answer was complicated.

“I don’t know,” he said after a long pause. “Maybe I already have, in my own way. I just hope they know how much I cared. Even when things were bad, I never stopped caring.”

The interview ended the way it began — quietly, without spectacle, without theatrics.

Just a man looking back on a lifetime of fame, hurt, and survival.

“I was used,” Peter Criss said again. “But I also chose to stay. Because for a long time, KISS was my family. And you don’t stop loving your family, even when they break your heart.”

As the cameras shut off, there was a sense that something monumental had just happened — not another scandal, but a reckoning.

For years, KISS fans had seen Peter Criss as the forgotten member, the one who faded into the background of a larger story.

But now, at 79, he had reclaimed his voice.

And with that, the man behind the makeup finally found something even more powerful than fame — the truth.