Billy Corgan and Bill Burr sure look alike, don’t they? The Smashing Pumpkins star’s stepmother thinks that’s no coincidence.
During an appearance on Howie Mandel’s Howie Mandel Does Stuff podcast, Corgan shared a hilarious story after Mandel mistakenly put up an image of Burr behind him. Corgan explained that it’s not the first time someone has pointed out the resemblance. “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?,’” the musician recalled. “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.”
He continued, “She said, ‘Well, he’s this comedian.’ And I think I even somehow called up a picture on the phone, and I kind of noticed right away, ‘Gee, he kind of looks like my father.’ 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?’”
While Corgan initially thought that his stepmother was simply pointing out the resemblance, she went even further. “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 said. “This is a true story. I’m not making this up; there is no joke in this.”
While Corgan clarified that he didn’t think he and Burr are actually half-brothers, it’s funny to think about. Watch him recall the full story here.
