WPC's Father Never Gave Him Any Birthday Money.

[Disco King]

The Smashing Pumpkins singer was on "The Howard Stern Show" on SiriusXM this week, and he shared how his dad won the lottery, but didn't tell him about it.

“He showed up — new clothes, new car. I said, ‘Did you rent this car?’ He laughed and said, ‘Sorta,’” Corgan recalled.

Some time afterward, the musician learned that his father had actually hit a spot of very, very good luck financially.

“His wife’s aunt had won the Florida state lottery — $27 million, clean … but my father didn’t want me to know because [he thought] I would ask him for my money back that he stole from me,” Corgan said. “That’s how my father’s brain worked.”

He also told Stern of his dad, “He stole money from me multiple times."

Source.

[topleybird]

So, in the idiomatic sense, his dad won the lottery, but in the literal sense he did not, and using the idiom in this case really muddies the waters and is imo inappropriate for conveying the actuality of the situation

How upset should we be about the misleading headline and subsequent line in the actual article

[NovaFritz]

So he was wealthy after all. I always wonder how he got that sweet guitar for the Marked.

[Disco King]

Originally Posted by topleybird

So, in the idiomatic sense, his dad won the lottery, but in the literal sense he did not, and using the idiom in this case really muddies the waters and is imo inappropriate for conveying the actuality of the situation

How upset should we be about the misleading headline and subsequent line in the actual article

But some things are truer in spirit than they could ever be in fact. Corgan, Sr. knew he won the lottery when he held his son for the first time on St. Patrick's Day. The old mickey knew his calling was to traumatize the boy thoroughly enough that he would go on to make profitably depressing music for the disaffected youth of a generation to identify with.

[T&T]

Billy came from money. that shatters everything. "working class man"... nope, just your typical born into riches delusional "I pulled myself up from my bootstraps" POS.

[NovaFritz]

This is the last song
This is the last song I'll sing for you
This is the last song
This is the last song I can give you

The roaring city sleeps
Metal fingers clutching dirty sheets
Daddy's stealing my money again
Liar's a millionaire his pockets so deep

This is the last song

My eyes are open wonder to this
As you hold the secrets
Of your wife's aunt's lottery win

The shards of broken glass
Adding up to $27 million clean
Daddy you treat me so badly
Probably worse than any other kid in the world

This is the last song

Could you find away across me
To forgive and forget me
I certainly don't know how to forgive anyone
I am a big baby even in my fifties
And now that you are dead
I will continue to complain about you on Stern

This is the last song

[FlamingGlobes]

[redbreegull]

I agree that does not accurately convey what happened,

but to dive into the kind of shit that people are currently trying to teach me to deal with my own trauma,

if you start with a universal belief that parents are supposed to help and protect their kids, there is going to be a fundamental disconnect if your parent acts to harm you, and specifically if your junkie dad steals from you, that's going to psychologically become even more painful when dad comes into lots of money but hides it whereas this could be a chance to redress something horrible that they did. And the whole time this reality is running up against your universal moral belief that parents are obligated morally to help their kids.

this generally is going to have consequences like that person having a lifelong internal compartmentalization and conflict over the concept of behavious surrounding love. No matter how shitty your parent, unless they literally are evil to you 100% of the time. is going to imprint on you as a child that love goes with abuse/torment/mistreatment. And then you the child will grow up and create similar relationship dynamics over and over almost to test if you are worthy by seeing if you can get someone abusive to give you the kind of unconditional love you sought from the parent

I take a lot of what b0lly says with a grain of salt, but I've said it before, I don't really doubt his stories of parental abuse at all. That makes total sense to me, and this story makes total sense to me how his father doing this could have inflicted even more trauma.



I feel like there is a presupposition of entitlement here but consider that no one is born with that attitude, they are taught it. I don't think Billy's dad stealing from him and then coming into money and hiding it and Billy feeling bad about it is entitlement, because people have to actually be given entitlements and told they are entitled to feel entitled. That's nothing more than a basic sense of deserving. Your fucking dad stole from you, had the chance to pay it back many times over, and didn't. And you still believe parents are supposed to help their kids from a universal, moral standpoint.

[Disco King]

Originally Posted by redbreegull

I agree that does not accurately convey what happened,

but to dive into the kind of shit that people are currently trying to teach me to deal with my own trauma,

if you start with a universal belief that parents are supposed to help and protect their kids, there is going to be a fundamental disconnect if your parent acts to harm you, and specifically if your junkie dad steals from you, that's going to psychologically become even more painful when dad comes into lots of money but hides it whereas this could be a chance to redress something horrible that they did. And the whole time this reality is running up against your universal moral belief that parents are obligated morally to help their kids.

this generally is going to have consequences like that person having a lifelong internal compartmentalization and conflict over the concept of behavious surrounding love. No matter how shitty your parent, unless they literally are evil to you 100% of the time. is going to imprint on you as a child that love goes with abuse/torment/mistreatment. And then you the child will grow up and create similar relationship dynamics over and over almost to test if you are worthy by seeing if you can get someone abusive to give you the kind of unconditional love you sought from the parent

I take a lot of what b0lly says with a grain of salt, but I've said it before, I don't really doubt his stories of parental abuse at all. That makes total sense to me, and this story makes total sense to me how his father doing this could have inflicted even more trauma.



I feel like there is a presupposition of entitlement here but consider that no one is born with that attitude, they are taught it. I don't think Billy's dad stealing from him and then coming into money and hiding it and Billy feeling bad about it is entitlement, because people have to actually be given entitlements and told they are entitled to feel entitled. That's nothing more than a basic sense of deserving. Your fucking dad stole from you, had the chance to pay it back many times over, and didn't. And you still believe parents are supposed to help their kids from a universal, moral standpoint.

I 100% agree with this.

There are enough similarities between my and Corgan's upbringing that lead me to believe that nobody who didn't actually experience the things he says he experienced could make up such convincing stories about them. Like the story from his LiveJournal about being beat by his dad while other children and neighbours celebrated his own birthday party downstairs, and then having to go join the party and act like nothing had happened (side note: it seems to me that this episode is what informed the lyrics to "To Forgive"). It's just such an identifiably familiar story that he would have to be smarter than he appears or do more research into others' experiences than he seems like he would do in order to just make it up. So, I believe it's real.

People act like his narcissistic traits are evidence that his sad stories are lies cynical lies to sell more records through a "tortured artist" persona, but I think the fact that he's such an asshole is actually evidence that his stories about his upbringing are true. A lot of the time, Cluster B traits (especially when it comes to borderline personality disorder) are responses to trauma.

And I also think he has genuine reason to be upset that his father didn't tell him about this. It's not that "daddy didn't give me money." It's that, as you said, it's pretty fucked up for a father to treat their kid in such a way.

I did give this thread a joking title, not because I don't think Corgan has license to be upset, but because despite being sad, it's also genuinely funny. I mean, it's such a bizarre and cartoonishly unfortunate thing to happen that it sounds like a Simpsons bit. The ironic juxtaposition between the luck and misfortune of the situation ("my dad is so bad that he won the lottery and hid it from me!"). And there honestly isn't a funnier guy that it could have happened to: a famously sad man with sad songs whose riches and fame can do little to heal him, but also he's an Irishman born on Saint Patrick's Day. I could imagine this being a character in some black comedy, and there being a scene where he's explaining this at a support group.

[T&T]

so at what year the old man bill win the lottery?
and how long did it take him to blow it all on dope.?

[redbreegull]

And yes, I do think someone's horrible abusive junkie thief dad concealing money from his son is super fucked up and super abusive and I do not think it signals entitlement from a kid who grew up blue collar and deprived of basic parental affirmations of love to think they justly deserve to be helped or at LEAST paid back from THEFT from his PARENT

[NovaFritz]

Originally Posted by redbreegull

And yes, I do think someone's horrible abusive junkie thief dad concealing money from his son is super fucked up and super abusive and I do not think it signals entitlement from a kid who grew up blue collar and deprived of basic parental affirmations of love to think they justly deserve to be helped or at LEAST paid back from THEFT from his PARENT

No one is arguing that his dad was a great guy.

but this "super abusive" "junkie" stuff I just don't buy. Billy had a basement space where he rocked out and access to a camcorder (I didn't when I was a kid but I don't go on and on about it), BC wasn't living in a car.

The ironic thing is that BC obviously based his entire identity of a rock artist on his father's aspiration. In addition to the abuse and mistreatment, he clearly got his passion for music and songwriting from his father. It would be nice to see him at least acknowledge that sometimes rather than just scraping the barrel to throw more insults at a dead guy. WE GeT IT BILLY YOU ARE BETTER THAN YOUR DADDY. Once again, BC should do some basic therapy beyond crystals, tea, and treating his own kids weirdly.

[Rairun]

Originally Posted by NovaFritz

No one is arguing that his dad was a great guy.

but this "super abusive" "junkie" stuff I just don't buy. Billy had a basement space where he rocked out and access to a camcorder (I didn't when I was a kid but I don't go on and on about it), BC wasn't living in a car.

The ironic thing is that BC obviously based his entire identity of a rock artist on his father's aspiration. In addition to the abuse and mistreatment, he clearly got his passion for music and songwriting from his father. It would be nice to see him at least acknowledge that sometimes rather than just scraping the barrel to throw more insults at a dead guy. WE GeT IT BILLY YOU ARE BETTER THAN YOUR DADDY. Once again, BC should do some basic therapy beyond crystals, tea, and treating his own kids weirdly.

Don't do this. What does a basement and a camcorder have to do with anything? The guy isn't making the abuse up. I have very little patience for any of his shit, but everything he's said about his upbringing tracks.

[T&T]

27million though. kind of tough to hide.

[redbreegull]

Originally Posted by T&T

27million though. kind of tough to hide.

doesnt sound like it was hidden beyond dont ask me where the money came from?

[TheAlter]

Originally Posted by redbreegull

ITT a major disconnect between people who relate to these experiences and those who do not

Everyday is like Sunday

Everyday is silent and grey

[topleybird]

Originally Posted by redbreegull

I feel like there is a presupposition of entitlement here but consider that no one is born with that attitude, they are taught it. I don't think Billy's dad stealing from him and then coming into money and hiding it and Billy feeling bad about it is entitlement, because people have to actually be given entitlements and told they are entitled to feel entitled. That's nothing more than a basic sense of deserving. Your fucking dad stole from you, had the chance to pay it back many times over, and didn't. And you still believe parents are supposed to help their kids from a universal, moral standpoint.

Completely agree with this, just to be clear (since you started your post kind of mentioning mine). What happened here was incredibly shitty and also part of a genuine pattern of abuse and neglect, and I didn't mean to minimize that with my dumb joking. I agree with others that he's not making any of this shit up. Obviously didn't write the article title himself, so the exaggeration is not coming from him, and if this is the sort of thing he wants to bring up about his dad in public conversations I don't blame him in the slightest. He did, iirc, say some kinder/more balanced about his dad when he passed, so it's not like this is coming from a place of complete hatred, but you can hardly blame him for incidents like this being the sort of shit he remembers most.

Originally Posted by T&T

27million though. kind of tough to hide.

Starting to think you're not joking with your posts in this thread. Billy Sr.'s wife's aunt won 27 million. We have, unless Billy went into more detail on Stern than I know, no idea how much money Sr. got from her. It's entirely possible she bought him (or quite possibly his wife, her sister) a car and gave him/them some walking around money for clothes and that's the end of it. That he chose to spend whatever that wad of cash he had access to on himself rather than repay his kid is kind of the main point of the story.

[T&T]

Originally Posted by topleybird

Starting to think you're not joking with your posts in this thread. Billy Sr.'s wife's aunt won 27 million.//// I know, no idea how much money Sr. got from her

dad's gf's aunt's... that's a reach.
my neice's bf's kid isn't getting a dime from me if I win the lottery. I'd laugh to myself if he grew up traumatized by my lack of charity.

[topleybird]

Originally Posted by T&T

dad's gf's aunt's... that's a reach.
my neice's bf's kid isn't getting a dime from me if I win the lottery. I'd laugh to myself if he grew up traumatized by my lack of charity.

Genuinely have no idea what you're trying to say. Billy is making... some of this story up? All of it? Walk me through what you think happened, pls.

[ourruseoffools]

Billy himself won the lotto in spirit… let your old man steal a little money as a treat you rich fuck Jesus Christ imagine ur dead as fuck and ur son is blabbing away about you on Howard stern god

[T&T]

BooHoo.

I think he's made it up. for the drams.

[houseofglass11]

His fathers wife’s aunt won the money right? That’s a long way off from “my dad won the lottery”. Presumably the woman just wanted her sister to be comfortable and took care of some things for her and his dad benefited just by happening to be there. I don’t think anyone would feel comfortable going up to their rich in-law and saying “hey can I borrow some money to pay back my son for the time I used his record store paycheck to buy heroin in 1987?”

[enthusaroo]

stupid fake childhood trauma

[ilikeplanets]

What some find abusive, others wouldn't. Emotionally speaking, that is, I'm not talking about getting physically beaten. Some people just have a very narrow definition of "abuse," but what really matters is the negative effects on someone. People hurt people without malicious intent.

[ilikeplanets]

It seems like it was the perfect storm of underlying mental health issues colliding with an unsupportive environment and irresponsible/selfish parents. But I wasn't there, I just know the product of that situation too well.

[enthusaroo]

Originally Posted by ilikeplanets

It seems like it was the perfect storm of underlying mental health issues colliding with an unsupportive environment and irresponsible/selfish parents. But I wasn't there, I just know the product of that situation too well.

which is probably true for the majority of people.. more than 75%? probably only 25% of people in 2023 don't have mental illness and had good parents.. Billy's situation is nothing special is all I'm saying.

[TheAlter]

Originally Posted by enthusaroo

which is probably true for the majority of people.. more than 75%? probably only 25% of people in 2023 don't have mental illness and had good parents..

Nowadays people feel abused because they've watched The Hangover ("Paging Dr. Faggot!")

it's kinda blurred lines in the mental health dept. there

[ilikeplanets]

Agreed. There's nothing he's ever said about his childhood/family that I haven't seen a thousand times. Doesn't mean it didn't fuck him up, though.

[enthusaroo]

Originally Posted by ilikeplanets

Agreed. There's nothing he's ever said about his childhood/family that I haven't seen a thousand times. Doesn't mean it didn't fuck him up, though.

true i don't know what point i was trying to make earlier.. just that most people have trauma.. in some cases serious traumas from childhood

and yeah it did something to him

[redbreegull]

ITT a major disconnect between people who relate to these experiences and those who do not