The Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan revealed his stepmother had told him he and Bill Burr could be half-brothers. Then the pair were ambushed with a meeting
There’s an undeniable resemblance between comedian Bill Burr and The Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan.
And the two stars ‘ physical likeness was put firmly under the microscope in November 2024 when the rock star revealed his stepmother, around a decade earlier, had suggested he and Burr could in fact be half-brothers.
Appearing on the Howie Mandel podcast, singer-songwriter Corgan, insisting it was a “true story” and “no joke”, recalled his stepmother had once said to him: “Do you know who Bill Burr is? Bill Burr might be one of the children that your father sired in his days being a travelling musician”.
Corgan’s dad, William Corgan Sr, died in 2021. He worked as a travelling blues musician and was said to have fathered as many as 12 children out of wedlock.
In January 2025, a few months after Corgan’s comments, Mandel surprised Burr, a guest on his show, by bringing in Corgan in what could be described as an ambush. Burr wasn’t happy.
The comedian shook hands with Corgan, before turning to Mandel and saying: “You’re an a**hole”. Corgan, clearly feeling awkward, explained Mandel had assured him Burr would be “totally cool” with the meeting.
Agreeing to stay in the studio, Burr asked Corgan: “Did you ever think the fact that I never told that story, that maybe you shouldn’t”?
He then appeared to confirm the pair could in fact share a father, saying: “He was a piece of s***. He had two kids this close together and he gave them the same f***ing name”?
Gesturing towards Corgan, he added: “It’s not that I don’t like him, it reminds me of all of that s***”.
Corgan, 58, presumably trying to cut the tension, said: “The fact that he said he can’t sing, I think, disproves that we’re related, ‘ cause I’m not funny, so it goes both ways”.
Burr, 57, chimed in: “Listen, you’ve done well for yourself. I’m happy for you. I just would prefer if you didn’t go around telling these f***ing stories. Why did you feel the need to do that”?
Corgan explained he had told the original story to Mandel off air and that the host then encouraged him to repeat it on the show. Making his feelings on host clear, Burr said: “He always does that. He’s bringing us here, not because he’s trying to heal the bulls*** that we went through growing up, he’s here just for the f***ing ratings”.
Since the ambush, Corgan has stressed that it wasn’t set up or staged and that he felt like they had “stumbled into something bigger”.
He claimed Burr looked so much like his father that the encounter briefly unsettled him. “I’d seen pictures, but seeing him in person was different”, he said. “You shake someone’s hand who you have this physical affinity for, and there are all these questions, and suddenly there’s a camera rolling. It was this awkward exchange of, ‘ OK, what do we do with this information? ‘”
He added that Burr handled the moment graciously, and said that the door was very much open for future conversations between them despite the awkwardness of their fist meet.
