By 2000, KISS was on their Farewell tour, featuring the band’s newly reunited original band members Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Ace Frehley, and Peter Criss, supporting the band’s 1998 album Psycho Circus, the first to feature the original lineup since Dynasty in 1979.
The tour featured each in their original KISS makeup—Simmons’ The Demon, Stanley as The Starchild, Frehley as The Spaceman, and The Catman Peter Crissand Peter Criss—something they had also wiped off by their Lick It Up era in 1983.
In 2000, Stanley wiped off his Starchild makeup again for an unlikely collaboration with the 170-year-old coffee brand Folgers.
“Life is strange,” said Stanley. “I got a call asking if I was interested in singing a Folgers commercial. And like many other things, I thought, ‘Why not?’ I wasn’t at all concerned with who thinks it is okay or not okay, cool, not cool, rock and roll or not. I had a blast doing it, and like I said, ‘Isn’t that what this is all about?’”
In the 30-second commercial, Stanley is seen walking through a circus scene with trapeze artists, while singing, coffee cup in hand.
This is your wake-up call
Time to reach and go for it all
Folgers stirs inside of me, and I know what I can be
The limit is the sky
Hey world, watch me fly
The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup
By the end of the ad, Stanley does his own “magic act” and disappears. Much like the final scene, the commercial also disappeared and was never aired.
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Folgers wasn’t Stanley’s first foray into televised ads. He also starred in a Rock Against Drugs commercial in 1986. He even did a voiceover for a Kit Kat commercial, featuring a parachuter landing on a giant candy bar.
In 2025, Stanley starred, alongside Billy Idol and Gwen Stefani, in a series of commercials for the AI platform, Workday, featuring all three dressed in business attire, pretending to live the corporate work life.
“So you corporate types think you’re rock stars?” asks Stanley in one clip, dressed business with his Starchild face on. “That’s as ridiculous as us being corporate types! When your weekend routine involves smashing guitars on stage, a boring office job just doesn’t compare.”
Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images
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