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A couple months ago, 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.”
Coincidentally, Burr was the guest on the latest episode of Mandel's podcast and the host thought it would be fun to surprise him with a family reunion. About 30 minutes into the conversation, he told Burr “I got something special that I planned for you,” and brought out Corgan. Burr said "What’s up” to Corgan and “You’re an a**hole” to Mandel.
“I thought you would be cool with me bringing the family together,” Mandel quipped.
Burr than made his own joke about Corgan revealing their family secret. “Did you ever think the fact that I never told that story, that maybe you shouldn’t?” Burr he said. “It’s not that I don’t like [Corgan], it reminds me of all of that s***.”
Throughout the episode, the two Bills pretend to be two bickering brothers until Mandel tells Corgan he should let Burr play drums in his band. “The fact that he said he can’t sing, I think, disproves that we’re related," the musician pointed out, "’cause I’m not funny. So… it goes both ways.”
Burr then hilariously questioned Mandel's intentions of the meeting. “What was supposed to happen?" he asked. "Are we gonna go play catch? We’re both in our fifties.”
They never confirm whether or not they're actually related, but it makes for some good entertainment. Listen to the full episode below.