Billy Corgan has discredited claims made by former Smashing Pumpkins bassist D’Arcy Wretzky that he “has a brain tumour” and revealed the reason why she wasn’t part of the band’s recent reunion.
In an interview with Howard Stern, the Pumpkins frontman, who was joined by bandmates James Iha and Jimmy Chamberlin, discussed his feud with Wretzky and the disparaging comments she made about him in an interview with Alternative Nation.
“That would fall under one of the 400 libelous and defamatory things she said that has no bearing in reality,” Corgan told Stern in regards to the brain tumour claim.
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He went on to talk about the band’s reunion and why Wretzky isn’t involved in the comeback. “The simple version is I spent two years trying to rebuild my relationship, much like James and I built our relationship. So, music seemed to be possible because there was good dialogue.
“Every time I talked to her on the phone, she was absolutely lovely. But every time I would address logical concerns… she would just kind of brush it off. When we first approached her on the business side — ‘This is going to be the framework, this is what it is probably going to look like’ — she refused.
“She just didn’t like the way it was going to be set up, and I’m not here to talk about that per se, but it wasn’t unfair, it wasn’t ridiculous.”
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Corgan said that negotiations broke down because he was “unable to get her in a room” and assess the situation. “I didn’t know the state of her body. I didn’t know the state of her mind. I didn’t know the state of her ability to play. This is very difficult music to play.”
The 51-year-old singer said Wretzky walked away and so the band started to move on. “Then she changed her mind, and by then we had already kind of half moved on,” he added, stating that too much time had passed in negotiations and so the band decided to forge ahead without her.
On whether Wretzky could rejoin the Pumpkins at a later date, Corgan said, “You can look at that kind of stuff and say that doesn’t belong here. Maybe it will someday, I don’t think it will because to me that ship has sailed.”
Smashing Pumpkins announced their reunion back in February and are set to begin a North American summer tour next month.
