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Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan has raised eyebrows by saying that his wife’s younger age was an “advantage” when they first started dating because she “hadn’t been wounded” by past relationships.
Corgan, who met his wife Chloé Mendel when she was 19 and he was 44, revealed in a new interview that he struggled to connect with women of his own generation because a lot of them were “broken” and he was also “broken.”
“I don’t want to make all the feminists mad,” Corgan, now 59, told The New York Times’ Popcast. “I think a lot of women born in the ‘90s [like Mendel], given the societal changes, given the correct and proper rise of feminism as a way to balance properly a lot of things.”
He continued, “But because so many women of our generation were going through that without a lot of help and coming out of a lot of abuse, it was harder to put those pieces together if you’re broken and they’re broken.”
He said it was a case of “two wrongs don’t make a right.”
Corgan added: “I was shocked at the stories I would hear of what they’ve been through. When I met my wife — and having that gap — she just wasn’t affected by those same politics. She just had a different version. She had a different sense of self-confidence…her youth was an advantage because she hadn’t been wounded like so many people are — because you just go through life and you get wounded.”
Corgan said he had “the advantage” of meeting someone “who was really open to love and the possibility.” He added: “And for whatever reason, [she] just decided not to judge me for who I was, particularly in that moment.”
Some onlookers have branded his comments as “sexist” after they surfaced online.
“It’s frustrating when men pretend to be artsy and perceptive but still can’t even see women as full, complex human beings,” wrote one Reddit user.
Another said: “The woman is 33 years old. I find it patronizing to paint her as a naive little thing…”
“Why infantilize women like this?” asked another, as one commenter added: “In other words he’s afraid of a women who have strong opinions due to more experience in life.”
“Labeling people trauma & misfortune as criteria for NOT being considered as a life partner is next level out of touch,” read another comment.
One person said he “Might as well just straight up say ‘because she’s naive and has less life experience.’”
Others sided with Corgan. One fan reasoned: “She chose him too. People act like it’s a one-way street and he chose her without her consent.”
The Independent has contacted Corgan’s representatives for comment.
Corgan met his wife in 2012, and they got engaged in 2022. They have three children together: Augustus, 10, Philomena, eight, and Juno, one.
Their wedding was documented in the 2024 reality show, Billy Corgan’s Adventures in Carnyland, which gave insight into their life as a family.
“It is interesting, for the first time after a 12-year relationship, to open the doors and … show our actual dynamic,” he told ScreenRant in 2024.
“People have often speculated — particularly given our age difference — what that dynamic is like, and I think the show really shows that we’re partners in life,” he said at the time. “We really are a 50/50 endeavor here.”
Corgan was previously married to art conservator Chris Fabian. They wed in 1993 and divorced four years later.
