The Smashing Pumpkins’ frontman Billy Corgan has shared a story about his family life, offering up the theory that comedian Bill Burr very well could be his long-lost half brother.
Corgan made the comments on an episode of the Howie Mandel Does Stuff podcast, opening up about a conversation he had with his stepmother a decade ago.
“About 10 years ago, one of my brothers was having a birthday party, and my stepmother was there, who was obviously married to my father,” he began, “And my stepmother said to me, ‘Do you know who Bill Burr is?’”
Admitting that he’d never heard of Burr at that point and that the comedian “could have been the guy down the street”, Corgan explains he did some research during that same conversation.
“I think I even somehow called up a picture on the phone, and I kind of noticed right away, ‘Gee, he really looks like my father.’,” he remembered. “Bill Burr looks more like my father than Bill Burr looks like me or I look like Bill Burr. So I said to my mother, ‘Why are you asking me this?’
“I thought the first thing she was going to say was, ‘Oh, I thought you’d notice the resemblance’,” he adds. “She goes, ‘I think it might be one of your father’s illegitimate children. Bill Burr might be one of the children that your father sired in his days being a traveling musician.’”
Pressing the legitimacy of his story, Corgan continued by explaining how his father (a travelling musician also who passed away in 2021) once told him he “had a half-brother named Bill who was basically born around the same time”. For reference, Burr is 15 months younger than Corgan.
Further adding to his theory, Corgan explained how his stepmother explained that Corgan Senior had fathered 12 children outside of wedlock.
However, Corgan himself admits the theory is likely a little far-fetched, given that Burr is known to have grown up with his biological parents – with his father being a distinctly individual to Corgan’s.
“There are people in the world who just look alike,” Corgan added, likely resigning to the possibility of pure coincidence.
Corgan will be on Australian shores next week when he performs as part of the 2024 Good Things festival lineup. Bill Burr likely won’t be in attendance.
