Vinnie Vincent Knows What You’ve Been Dying To Ask Him, And There’s A Reason Why He Won’t Address It
Bobby Bank / Getty Images
‘I’ll Let You Guys Decide’
By now, I’m sure you’ve noticed that Vinnie Vincent is looking a little…different these days.
The 65-year-old former KISS guitarist has been at the center of a series of pointed (and sometimes really, really unkind) questions about his physical appearance and gender identity since his return to the public eye. To his credit, Vinnie’s been incredibly kind and patient about it – but if you’re looking for a concrete answer, you’re out of luck.
Asked if he is presently “living life as a woman” during an interview on Noize in the Attic’s podcast (which can be found at Ultimate Classic Rock), Vinnie shut down the suggestion, answering with “Not that I know of. I don’t know where they came up with this stuff,” but a short time later explained exactly why he won’t be publicly addressing the rumors any time soon.
“But see, if I address that, then the mystique is gone. See, everybody loves the mystique. I think they love the mystique because they don’t know. So maybe I’ll say, ‘I’ll let you guys decide’ … then everyone is still talking.”
Vincent, who played with KISS from 1982 to 1984 and appeared on Creatures of the Night and Lick It Up, wholeheartedly admits to being “mistaken all the time for something else” and at a loss in terms of how to combat it, saying simply “But what can I do? You correct ‘em and they go, ‘I don’t understand.’ … Then I won’t correct you. So maybe it goes that way.”
But there will be answers, he promises, in his upcoming memoir.
Last month Vincent announced plans for an official memoir, slated for a 2019 release. A memoir, he says, that will give fans “the in-depth answers to everything” they’ve ever wanted to know about Vinnie Vincent. Don’t expect it to be sunshine and rainbows, though; he admits that the memoir will be “uncomfortable” for readers, but that ultimately it’ll be something they’ll want to read cover to cover more than once.
So why now? For Vinnie, the answer is simple.
“The fans deserve to know, and I deserve to tell it,” he explained. “And it’s nice to be back, but you can only be back [if] … The meaning of being back, the reason and the meaningfulness of being back can only depend on the resolve of the past … That book is my resolve.”
