Billy Corgan has been with his wife Chloe Mendel since 2012. They have three children and many cats together. They are also in an age-gap relationship – Corgan is 59 years old, and Chloe is 34. Meaning, they got together when he was in his mid-40s and she was 19 years old. Most people were prepared to just shrug it off and say “it is what it is, it probably works for them.” But then Corgan decided to defend his age-gap marriage in the grossest way possible, by suggesting that women of his generation (Gen X) are too damaged, broken and victimized to share a life with.

Billy Corgan is explaining how his 25-year age gap with wife Chloé Mendel presented a huge “advantage” in their relationship.

The Smashing Pumpkins frontman, who shares three kids with his wife of three years, recently revealed that he struggled to connect with women of his own generation prior to meeting Mendel, but didn’t face those same issues when their romance began in 2012.

“I don’t want to make all the feminists mad,” Corgan, 59, joked when asked about their age-gap during a visit to the New York Times’ Popcast. “I think a lot of women born in the ‘90s [like Mendel], given the societal changes, given the correct and proper rise of feminism as a way to balance properly a lot of things.”

He continued, “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.”

The guitarist said he ultimately met a “lot of broken women along the way” before eventually crossing paths with Mendel, 34, but clarified that it was “nothing wrong with them,” it was just a case of “two wrongs don’t make a right.”

He added, “I was shocked at the stories I would hear of what they’ve been through. When I met my wife — and having that gap — she just wasn’t affected by those same politics. She just had a different version.”

The couple were introduced by a mutual friend in 2012, when Mendel was 19 and Corgan was 44. According to the musician, they quickly discovered an easy chemistry between them.

“She had a different sense of self-confidence,” he said. “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.”

Corgan said he was lucky to have “the advantage” of meeting someone “who was really open to love and the possibility.” He added, “And for whatever reason, [she] just decided not to judge me for who I was, particularly in that moment.”

Corgan was previously married to art conservator Chris Fabian, with whom he had a long-term on-and-off relationship. They tied the knot in 1993 and split four years later.

Corgan and Mendel, a fashion designer and CEO of House of Giles, got engaged in 2022. By that point, the couple had welcomed son Augustus in 2015 and daughter Philomena in 2018. They tied the knot in 2024, a journey that was documented in the 2024 reality show, Billy Corgan’s Adventures in Carnyland. They later welcomed their third child, daughter Juno, in 2025.

[From EW]

He’s basically arguing that he *had* to be with a 19-year-old because she was so fresh and new, no one had abused her or mistreated her yet. Way to treat half of his generational peers like they’re damaged goods because men abused and mistreated them!! Jesus. There’s really nothing worse than a guy in his 40s arguing that he’s too broken to be in a relationship with another “broken” person his own age, and that’s why he needs to date teenagers. “This teenager will fix me, a 44-year-old man who thinks 40-something women are damaged goods.”

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.