Smashing Pumpkins musician Billy Corgan sees his 26-year age difference with his wife, Chloé Mendel, as a net positive.
“I think a lot of women born in the ‘90s, given the societal changes, … [saw the] proper rise of feminism as a kind of way to balance properly a lot of things,” Corgan, 59, said on the Thursday, October 22, episode of The New York Times’ “Popcast” podcast. “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.”
Corgan, who has been married to Mendel, 33, since 2023, explained that he previously struggled to connect with women from his same generation.
“There was nothing wrong with them. It was, like, the old thing? ‘Two wrongs don’t make a right.’ I met a lot of broken women along the way,’ he acknowledged. “It was hard for me to put those pieces together. And so, when I met my wife and having that gap, she wasn’t affected by those same politics. She just had a different version.”
Corgan, who was first romantically linked to Mendel in 2012, soon realized how different the fashion designer was from women he previously dated.
“[Chloé] had a different sense of self-confidence, and then, you know, 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,” he explained on Thursday’s episode. “I had the advantage of somebody who was really open to love and the possibility, and for whatever reason, [she] just decided not to judge me for who I was, particularly, in that moment.”
Corgan further gushed that he feels like “luckiest guy in the world” to have met Mendel and welcomed a family together. (Corgan and Mendel welcomed son Augustus in 2015, followed by daughters Philomena and Juno in 2018 and 2025, respectively.)
“I appreciate my life and music so much more since I’ve been a father because I have to really think hard,” Corgan exclusively told Us in June about parenthood. “‘OK, if I’m going to go away from my family, why am I going away?’ I really celebrate my time in music now, where before when my life was only about music, it kind of drove me crazy because it was too obsessive. It’s like being too focused on something. It’s not helpful.”
