BILLY CORGAN SAYS HE IS NOT TAYLOR SWIFT’S FATHER, BECAUSE BILLY CORGAN ‘DOES NOT EXIST’
Written by broebling on July 27, 2018
An internet meme pointing out facial similarities between Smashing Pumpkins leader Billy Corgan and Taylor Swifthas come to our attention. But the only reason we’ve heard about it is because Corgan himself addressed it. Over the course of two lengthy Instagram posts, he denied any possibility that he is her father. However, his alibi is not that he did not have a sexual relationship with Swift’s mother in early 1989, but rather that there is no “Billy Corgan.”
He starts off acknowledging that it’s an unserious accusation. “I’ll take the compliment of the comparison here despite the fact that I guess the jokes on me? (and not the lovely and talented Miss Swift),” he wrote, before beginning a discussion on the question of identity, between real and constructed images, that have popped up in the digital age. He offered his own life story as an example.
“There is NO such person as ‘Billy Corgan,'” he continued. “He (BC) does not exist. Or, if he does exist (per these times), he is a creation from my mind to yours, and no different than a cartoon drawing of Batman or Sponge Bob.”
For the first 18 years of his life, he was called “Bill” or “Little Bill” as a way to distinguish himself from his father, who was known to all as “Billy.” But then, to escape his own history of abuse, he decided to become “Billy Corgan,” which he describes as ‘a construct of my own making, with a different walk, haircut, and even eyes that I purposely changed (from fully open to ovals half closed, like those of a snake).” This was, to him, in the same manner that Robert Zimmerman morphed into Bob Dylan.
“Billy,” he said, “was better than I, and certainly more interesting, and capable in ways I couldn’t have dreamt of even months before while I was still in school.” In addition, “when things went wrong, or I misstepped, it was ‘his’ fault and not mine. Billy being a shield against all that ails me in the world.”
Over the years, Corgan added, “the more I played at this character, the more I became him; like an actor who’s been in a role so long (William Shatner as Captain Kirk) that he assumes the attributes of said character cause it’s just easier that reminding anyone there might be a difference.”
He closed by recalling a quote he once apparently gave to The New York Times: “You can keep Billy Corgan, he is dead, and he’s there for you to mock and use as you wish.”
Whether their frontman is living or not, the Smashing Pumpkins’ current tour, which brought founding member James Iha back into the fold, continues tonight (July 27) at the Royal Farms Arena in Baltimore and runs through Sept. 7, when they hit Boise’s Ford Idaho Center. Check out all the dates here.
