{"id":943015,"date":"2026-10-23T06:28:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-23T06:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/943015\/"},"modified":"2026-10-23T06:28:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-23T06:28:12","slug":"billy-corgan-defends-friendship-with-marilyn-manson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/943015\/","title":{"rendered":"Billy Corgan Defends Friendship with Marilyn Manson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Billy Corgan<\/a> addressed his friendship with the embattled Marilyn Manson<\/a> during an appearance on the New York Times podcast Popcast.<\/p>\n

Corgan and Manson attended each other\u2019s birthday parties the past couple of years, leading Popcast co-host Jon Caramanica to ask Corgan about maintaining a friendship with the shock rocker in the wake of the sexual misconduct allegations against him in recent years.<\/p>\n

Get Smashing Pumpkins Tickets Here<\/a><\/p>\n

The Smashing Pumpkins<\/a> frontman pointed to both public developments related to the accusations, including the Los Angeles District Attorney dropping a sexual assault case against Manson<\/a>, as well as his own personal knowledge of the situation.<\/p>\n

Related Video<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that ultimately, as a Christian person\u2026 you have to stand by your friends,\u201d began Corgan, \u201cbut that doesn\u2019t mean you don\u2019t have an opinion, and that doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re not critical. In his case, and I\u2019m not here to adjudicate it, but the DA looked at the case for five years. In some cases, I knew personal things behind the scenes that are not in the public sphere. I personally didn\u2019t feel that he was guilty of the things he was being charged with, and ultimately, the fact that the DA didn\u2019t pursue it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued, \u201cSo, basically, the person that I knew and the way it all kind of went down, even though it was an elongated process, was commensurate with the person that I knew. You know what I mean? It\u2019s like, it all kind of lined up. But, I wasn\u2019t there. I can\u2019t be there for everything. But I guess it\u2019s one of those things where I don\u2019t want the world to tell me who my friends are and who I should associate with. That\u2019s politically, socially, and in Brian\u2019s case [Manson\u2019s real name is Brian Warner], we have a relationship that goes back close to 30 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corgan also pointed to the fact that Manson and Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha are brothers-in-law.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other thing that people should know, and it may gets lost in the gloss here is Manson\u2019s wife Lindsay is a twin,\u201d explained Corgan. \u201cAnd her twin is Ashley, and Ashley\u2019s married to James Iha of the Pumpkins. So, Manson\u2019s basically a part of our family \u2014 there\u2019s a deeper set of relationships there. Plus, I knew Manson\u2019s parents.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corgan concluded, \u201cSo, I think anybody in that situation struggles with\u2026 the seriousness of the accusations, but again, I also knew the inside baseball of the case. I knew certain people who are involved, and so you make those evaluations. At the end of the day, I feel I made the right determination, but if things had come out\u2026 Like, people would ask me privately, \u2018Well, what happens if\u2026\u2019 and I\u2019d say, \u2018If he\u2019s guilty, or anybody in that situation is guilty, they should go to jail.’\u201d<\/p>\n

While Corgan\u2019s friendship with Manson dates back three decades, the two had a falling out for roughly 15 years when Manson got upset about a letter that Corgan wrote him warning of his relationship with actress Rose McGowan. They buried the hatchet in December 2014, when Manson joined the Pumpkins onstage at a concert in London.<\/p>\n

The Smashing Pumpkins are in the midst of their \u201cRats in a Cage\u201d North American fall tour<\/a> celebrating the 30th anniversary of their seminal album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Pick up tickets here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Marilyn Manson, meanwhile, is on the road in support of his recent album, One Assassination Under God \u2013 Chapter 2, with headlining shows coming up in Austin and Los Angeles, and an appearance at the Sick New World festival in Fort Worth, Texas, this Saturday.<\/p>\n

Watch Billy Corgan\u2019s appearance on Popcast below. The conversation about Manson begins at the 53:24 mark.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Billy Corgan addressed his friendship with the embattled Marilyn Manson during an appearance on the New York Times…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":943016,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,361,75],"class_list":["post-943015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=943015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/943016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=943015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=943015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=943015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}