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Howie Mandel has publicly apologized to Bill Burr and Billy Corgan, following an awkward incident on his podcast last month.
“I want to apologize,” Mandel said Tuesday on his Howie Mandel Does Stuff podcast. “I feel horrible, and I’m sorry, Bill. I’m sorry, Billy. I only tried to do something good.”
The America’s Got Talent judge was referring to the Jan. 21 episode of his podcast, on which Mandel surprised Burr with a second guest: Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins. Corgan had explained on Mandel’s show in November that his stepmother told him a decade ago that Burr “might be one of the children that your father sired in his days being a traveling musician.”
Corgan remembered, too, that his father told him he had a half-brother close to his age (Corgan is 57, and Burr is 56) and his name was Bill.
Mandel’s podcast episode with the two — called “Family Reunion with Bill Burr & Billy Corgan” — did not go well from the start. “You’re an a–hole,” Burr said to Mandel, as he accused him of arranging the encounter strictly for ratings.
On the new episode, Mandel insisted to his daughter and cohost, Jackie, and his guests for the day, twin brother comedians and actors Randy and Jason Sklar, that he had only good intentions with the stunt.
“I legitimately thought I was doing something nice, I swear to you,” Mandel said. “I thought it was funny.”
Michael S. Schwartz/Getty
One of the Sklars suggested that Mandel had wanted to “make everybody uncomfortable in a funny way.”
Whatever the reason, Mandel said he “had no idea” that things would play out a they did.
“Bill Burr has not peeped,” Mandel said Tuesday. “I texted him and said, ‘Good episode.’ Didn’t answer. I said, ‘Is there anything I can do to further this this, to follow up’? No answer.”
In the fallout, Burr slammed Mandel, even calling him “a Hollywood whore” when asked about the situation on the Rich Eisen Show on Jan. 27.
Mandel said the next thing he saw were headlines about Burr’s reaction. He reviewed a few on the podcast, and he agreed with the verb used in one, that he had “blindsided” Burr.
“The truth of the matter is, if he feels bad, I feel bad,” he said.
