Kiss Lead Singer Claims Michael Bolton Had Minimal Role in Writing Hit Song ‘Forever’

Paul Stanley said that Michael Bolton did very little work on the 1990 Kiss power ballad, "Forever," but he got co-writing credit anyway. Stanley made this claim in his 2016 memoir, Face the Music: A Life Exposed.

"In fact, after an all too brief initial writing session at the Sunset Marquis, Michael had so little to do with it that once it became a hit, he asked the Kiss office to fax him over a copy of the lyrics," wrote Stanley in his memoir, according to American Songwriter. "Only then did he start performing the song in concert, and introducing it as a song he wrote for Kiss."

The two met at the Sunset Marquis Hotel in West Hollywood. They worked on the track for the band's fifteenth album, Hot in the Shade. Stanley contacted Bolton because he'd written many hits for other artists, including "How Am I Supposed to Live Without You" for Laura Branigan in 1982 and Cher's 1988 hit, "I Found Someone." 

Bolton began performing "Forever" at his concerts after it became a hit. Stanley wrote that many people thought Michael Bolton wrote the track because it sounded different from typical Kiss material.

The song got to No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100, according to American Songwriter. It came out on January 5, 1990, and it was the band's first Top 40 hit since "I Was Made for Lovin' You," which peaked at No. 11 in 1979.

Stanley and Gene Simmons worked separately on Hot in the Shade, sometimes bringing in outside songwriters. Stanley fought with the record label to keep "Forever" as he'd arranged it. Even after Stanley's account of the writing process, Bolton kept introducing the track as a song he wrote for Kiss during his live shows. Many other artists worked on the album, including Holly Knight, Desmond Child, and Bob Halligan Jr.