Smashing Pumpkins’ D’arcy Wretzky Gives Explosive Interview: Billy Corgan Has ‘Always Been Insufferable’
Former Smashing Pumpkins bassist D’arcy Wretzky has opened the flood gates in a new interview. During an in-depth chat with Alternative Nation, Wretzky spoke about her tenuous relationship with Billy Corgan over the years, saying “he’s always been insufferable.”
As documented in a slew of text messages between Corgan and Wretzky, which were publicly released by the latter, talks of D’arcy taking part in a classic Pumpkins reunion disintegrated fairly quickly. Beforehand, statements were unveiled from both sides about their inability to get on stable ground, which has just been heightened once again with Wretzky’s new interview.
The bassist details get-togethers going on without her knowledge, including the photo of James Iha and Jimmy Chamberlin hanging out with Billy Corgan in the studio. "I sent Billy a text saying I hope he and his family had great holidays, tell Chloe [Mendel] I said hi, his baby mama. Then it jumps to the day after he released the picture of he, Jimmy, and James. It was like oops, I maybe should have told D’arcy, she’s going to be pissed off."
She adds, "The fucking nerve, and then for him to come back and say, ‘Well, we haven’t seen you in this long, and you haven’t done this, and you couldn’t even make it to this. Everyone has shown up, and you didn’t?’ How could I, I didn’t even know you were there?"
Wretzky claims her final years with the Smashing Pumpkins were riddled with pain. “I was having a nervous breakdown. I had 30 plus panic attacks a day, I didn’t know what it was, it was terrible,” Wretzky says about the band’s 1999 ‘Arising!’ shows. “The day after the tour, I had tried to quit two or three times, but it’s difficult to do when you have everybody, my husband, my family, telling me, ‘No, no, just wait until the next record.’”
The bassist also says she suffered a miscarriage as a result of the stress she endured during recording sessions, which she describes as “always a fucking nightmare.” “Billy loved to humiliate people and shame people in front of other people,” D’arcy recalls. “It was incredibly abusive, and I was the only one who would fight back.”
After speaking about her struggle with drugs following her Smashing Pumpkins departure (though Wretzky doesn’t consider herself an addict) the founding SP bassist spoke of reunion talks beginning in 2016. According to D’arcy, Billy Corgan’s wrestling ventures played a part in facilitating a classic Smashing Pumpkins reunion.
“He said to me, ‘Well, maybe you know, and maybe you don’t, but with this wrestling thing I kind of got myself a bit into a bit of a hole.’ That was one of the first things he said to me,” Wretzky claims. “Billy always said, ‘Oh, I’ll never do just a reunion and play the oldies just for money.’ That’s exactly what it is now.”
She adds, “It took me a long time to not care, and not hate him. Now I don’t hate him, I’m back to where I was at the beginning. I laugh at his antics, and I’m going to go about my own life, but I don’t feel sorry for him. I do think he needs to get an MRI though.”
Wretzky’s interview concludes with, “I thought he wasn’t reading my texts, then he said, ‘Blah blah blah, I wish you well.’ I was like, ‘You don’t wish me well, you don’t love me, you don’t love anybody, you don’t care about anybody.’ Then he’s like, ‘Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!’ I’m like there he is! There is the real Billy Corgan, I finally got through to you! He’s a like a dog with a bone, you just can’t get through to him.”
Check out the entire discussion at Alternative Nation and stay tuned to Loudwire for all your Smashing Pumpkins developments.
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