Billy Corgan recently appeared as a guest on Club Random with Bill Maher and disclosed that his late father, William Dale Corgan, was a drug dealer and used to take him to drug deals.
Recalling his childhood years, Corgan said:
“You know, my father was a drug dealer.”
After Maher expressed his surprise, the singer went on:
“My father sold heroin, cocaine, and weed. I was actually pretty much a teetotaler in my 20s because I was so in that world that I wanted nothing to do [with it].”
When asked if he was aware his father was doing that, Billy said:
“I’m five years old at the kitchen table by my dad. By the way, this is 1972. This is not like now you’re sitting here smoking. My dad, in 1972, would sit at dinner and smoke joint after joint, and we’d all contact high, eating our macaroni and cheese. Nixon’s on the TV being impeached, and I’m like out of my mind. I don’t think he was dealing then, and later, in order to sustain his habit, he started dealing.”
The rocker further shared his childhood memories:
“So, it was not unusual in my house, like I don’t know. You’re looking for something, and you’re like, ‘Is the thing I’m looking for?’ I don’t know, like, ‘My hat is in this bag?’ No, it’s not in this bag. You open this leather bag, and it’s like eight pounds of weed in the kitchen. My dad used to take me on drug deals. He’d leave me in the car, I guess, to keep me safe.”
This is not the first time the Smashing Pumpkins vocalist opened up about his difficult childhood and his father’s unsupportive behaviors. In an interview two months ago, Billy Corgan had revealed that after a successful album, he had high hopes for his father’s praise, but instead, he encountered a response where his father questioned his career.
He said the following about his father’s reaction to his success:
“He got really jealous. I was shocked because, in my mind, I watched too many Disney movies, but I thought he would pat me on the head and say, ‘Good job, kid, I’m so proud of you.’ It was the exact opposite. He acted like I played some weird magic trick, and I got lucky. He was using words like ‘lucky’ and ‘save your money because you’re gonna need it,’ and ‘snug a knuckle in the last.’ It was all this doomed talk. He put that vibe on me.”
You can listen to the entire interview below.
