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Late last year, Billy Corgan told a story about how Bill Burr might be his half-brother during a visit to the Howie Mandel Does Stuff podcast after the crew accidentally put up a photo of the comedian behind the Smashing Pumpkins frontman.
“Most of my friends don’t even know this story,” Corgan recalled at the time. “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. And my stepmother said to me, ‘Do you know who Bill Burr is?’ Now at that point, I had never heard of Bill Burr; I didn’t know who he was. I didn’t know he was a comedian or anything. He could have been the guy down the street.”
“I thought the first thing she was going to say was, ‘Oh, I thought you’d notice the resemblance. 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,’" he went on. "This is a true story. I’m not making this up; there is no joke in this.”
Since sharing the revelation, Corgan's met Burr—an experience he called "surreal"—but does he actually think they share the same dad? The musician shared his honest opinion during a recent visit to The Joe Rogan Experience podcast.
“People I know for 20, 30 years have been asking me what I think,” he explained. “I said I don’t know, but I don’t think we’re related. There’s a resemblance but I don’t think we’re related. They’re like, ‘did you get a DNA test?’ and I said there’s no reason to but they’d say ‘well I think he’s your brother.'”
Listen to the full podcast episode below.