A couple months ago, Billy Corgan told Howie Mandel that comedian Bill Burr could very well be his half-brother. With Burr as the latest guest on his podcast, Mandel surprised the funnyman with a visit from the Smashing Pumpkins frontman — leading to a meeting of the two Bills.
On the November episode, Mandel’s production team erroneously put up a photo of Burr during Corgan’s turn on the podcast, leading the alt-rock legend to disclose that he may be related to his celebrity look-alike.
“Most of my friends don’t even know this story,” began Corgan. “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.”
The singer-guitarist continued, “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.’ This is a true story. I’m not making this up; there is no joke in this.”
Fast-forward to the new episode of the Howie Mandel Does Stuff podcast, and 30 minutes into his conversation with Burr, he says, “I got something special that I planned for you,” at which point he brings out Corgan, who walks over and greets Burr, who says, “What’s up,” to Corgan, and, “You’re an asshole,” to Mandel.
Mandel quips, “I thought you would be cool with me bringing the family together.” Burr then went on to chastise Corgan for letting the family secret out of the bag.