EXCLUSIVE: ‘Shine the light on those cockroaches!’ Kiss frontman Gene Simmons says racists should be publicly shamed and fired from their jobs and reveals how he bashed a bully’s nose in as a teen for spewing anti-Semitic hate at him

Kiss frontman Gene Simmons says racists should be publicly shamed and fired from their jobs, as he joins scores of celebrities in a new Black-Jewish Entertainment Alliance.

In an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com the rock legend also revealed his first experience of anti-Semitism aged 13, when a boy tried to keep him out of a YMCA pool because he was Jewish. It didn’t end well for the racist teen.

‘I remember coming out of the pool and these two guys got in my face. One said ‘What are you doing here? You’re Jewish’,’ said Simmons, whose Hungarian mother survived the Holocaust.

‘He started talking about Nazis. I remember thinking about my mother and everything. I leaned forward and said ”Sorry I can’t hear you.”

‘As he got in my face, I smashed my forehead against his nose. Of course he started bleeding and fell into the pool. And I was thrown out of the YMCA.’

The 71-year-old rock star said the experience was just one of many that led him to champion stamping out prejudice.