
Remember when Smashing Pumpkins’ frontman Billy Corgan called trans woman, activist, and guitar pedal engineer Devi Ever “an ugly pig,” and “he/she”? Well, that’s not all he said…
The mediocre musician that piggybacks on the talent of others also threatened to “knock [her] fucking lights out” and said “I am gonna sue you for so much you’ll never be able to afford so much as to even make a fucking guitar cable.”
Why is Billy Corgan bashing a trans woman?
Devi has since deleted the post which started the feud. But, internet sleuths did manage to snag Corgan’s now-deleted angry transphobic Facebook posts and tweets.
What caused this hissy fit? Ever complained that Corgan had never paid nor responded to her regarding a custom bass pedal she allegedly made at his request. That made the Smashing Pumpkins’ frontman pretty mad.
After calling Ever an “an ugly pig,” a “he/she,” and accusing her of stealing her pedal idea from another Portland, Oregon pedal maker on X (then Twitter), he took to Facebook to continue his tirade:
“You ugly piece of shit…if i ever run into you, anywhere, at anytime, for as long as i live, i will knock your fucking lights out. don’t ever come near me, and if i hear even one more peep out of you in public about me, or the band, or the members of the band, i am gonna sue you for so much you’ll never be able to afford so much as to even make a fucking guitar cable.”
Billy Corgan on Facebook

Via Facebook, Ever called his “stolen pedal” claim libelous and said that his public rant probably wouldn’t help his lawsuit, Corgan continued:
“You fucked up, you know it, so eat shit, shut the fuck up and accept you’ve attacked someone who tried to HELP YOU. but addicts and self-destructive people like you who HATE THEMSELVES must turn their hate out. if this is what you have to do to not kill your unhappy self, well then i’d say it was a wise decision. beyond that, you are fucking lame, dumb, and so so ugly.”
Billy Corgan on Facebook

Ever ended up making a 19-minute YouTube video about her side of the story and how Corgan’s transphobic language hurts trans-rights, but she deleted it, and later commented:
“Instead of being a whiny bitch on [the Smashing Pumpkins message boards] I should have gone for a hike, cooled off, then spoken with Billy privately about my disappointments with his reactions / non-reaction to my pedals over the years, but I still don’t think that excuses Billy for going as far as he did in retaliation, and I’d still greatly appreciate if Billy apologized via Twitter, and perhaps donate to a trans-rights organization.”
Devi Evers response to Billy Corgan’s transphobic tirade

The her-story behind Billy Corgan’s transphobia
But what’s with Corgan’s trans-hate? Well, we got a hold of Corgan’s first-hand account of his sexual encounter with a transwoman which might shed light on his anti-trans mindset. Presenting, Billy’s April 11th 2005 LiveJournal post:
“One cool evening, I run into someone I see regularly out and about…we get to talking, and one thing leads to another, and she invites me back to her apartment…she makes me some soup, and after I am fed full, pulls me into her bed…the lights are turned off, and we start kissing…each time I try to touch her ‘down there’, she moves away from me and tenses up…this goes on for about 10 minutes until I finally ask if there is a problem…she says “there is something I have to tell you”, and proceeds to tell me that she is a he…I jump up and flip on the light…she/he says “look, it’s not a big deal, I won’t tell anyone, please stay, I’ll do anything you want me to do”…I beg off politely, saying it’s not really my trip, and I’m *boom* out the door, on the street laughing to myself (how could I not know! Oops…) it occurs to me that I always thought she was a kind of weird looking girl anyway…I walked the 20 minutes home in the middle of the night, and was relieved to get back safe…I go inside, walk to the bathroom and throw on the light, and gasp when I see the massive hickie on my neck…of course, the next day the band is rehearsing, and when they see the mark, ask who I had ended up with…I lie and say it was a tourist type girl who had already left town…after a few weeks, friends start coming up and asking me if I had slept with the he/she…I feign ignorance at the whole matter, but I start to get angry because I felt I had been duped innocently, acted honorably, and now some sort of revenge was being played out…after a couple more weeks of this, I finally pulled “her” aside and said not so politely that if he didn’t stop telling people what had happened, that I would break both his arms and his legs…and that was the end of that…”
Billy Corgan on Livejournal retelling his sexual encounter with a trans woman
Oh, Billy. Advocating violence against trans-people to hide your own shame? Tsk, tsk. Despite all your rage you are still just a rat in a cage. (And you peaked in the 90s.)
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Billy Corgan’s transphobic comments hit all the wrong notes. But if you’re looking for a harmonious source of LGBTQ+ news, subscribe to the Queerty newsletter! We promise, our news is always on key.
Cinesnatch
Billy Corgan offers little reason to like him, but Siamese Dream will always be a great album.
ewe
coming from the mouth of a white skinhead sexist racist pig? surprise surprise.
Bruno
Seems a little silly to link to a SP video…maybe sending a little business his way? This is really scarily transphobic stuff from him, not that I’m surprised. As much as I was a fan way back when, it was always obvious he was some kind of ogre.
nix
That guy can go fuck himself and die for all I care
Mav
Does anyone still listen to Smashing Pumpkins? I thought that was a nineties thing.
jason
Billy Corgan looks like Frankenstein’s monster.
Jonas
Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness are two of the best albums ever… but everything Corgan has touched since has turned to shit and he’s always been nothign short of an absolute twat.
Jim
Is that a picture of Clint Howard with a guitar?
Little Kiwi
this lady would know just what to say…..
http://youtu.be/9wT_i29W5z4
WhatAbout
@Cinesnatch: I agree that music was great. But he sounds kind of unpleasant. But, then…I don’t know the full behind-the-scenes story. Could even be a mutual publicity stunt (knowing how fake everything in show biz is).
ron
Duping someone into bed by posing as the opposite gender is fraud and sexual assault. But because it usually only happens to straight men, it’s a joke, right? Corgan has good reason to be angry at trannies, considering how he was treated. The violent threats, however, are criminal and should be police investigated.
Ambrose
THIS man called someone ELSE an “ugly pig?” REALLY?
WaterfordCT
He might hate trannies, but at least a self-professed devotee of William Burroughs is probably not a homophobe. PPS- Probable Publicity Stunt
Mav
@ron: Transgendered people are not “posing” as the opposite gender…
That being said, anyone who waits until someone is unbuckling their pants to tell them that they’re trans is not putting themselves in a very safe position. And if Billy Corgan doesn’t want to sleep with a transsexual, then he’s perfectly within his rights to cry off and not have someone calling him being transphobic because of it.
She embarrassed him by not being honest, and he acted like an ass in response. Totally unsurprising.
Shannon1981
stopped being a fan a long time ago. Don’t give him attention, it’s what he wants, considering how long he and his shit band have been completely irrelevant.
WaterfordCT
Attention is certainly what Devi Ever wants too.
Gema
What a horrible person.
ewe
@ron: If and when someone is good enough to complement you on your looks you should either say yes or no thank you. That’s the extent of your boundary so save your bullshit about trannies this and that. FOOL.
ewe
Look at the picture. The jackass can’t even tie his shoes before a performance.
AFruit4Thought
@ron: I got punched by a Christian once. Now I hate all Christians.
Generalizations are totally justified all the time.
Jonathonz
Him calling someone else ugly is like calling a kettle black. Ick.
Jonathonz
Him calling someone else ugly is like calling a kettle black. He’s a double dip serving of ick.
He’s just mad because Smashing Pumpkins aren’t cool anymore like Radiohead.
Geo
Corgan apparently likes slashed between words (“He/She”) so let’s play along: the once promising/talented Corgan’s now a seriously pathetic/creepy wash out/up wannabee/neverwas.
shannon
I AM SHOCKED NO GAY MEN ARE HERE CALLING HIM “HAWT” AND SEXY….LIKE WE ALWAYS SEE HERE…
Opheliac
I knew there was a reason Emilie Autumn wrote a hate-filled song about this douchefuck.
This is what we all think about you, Billy Corgan:
I know
The arrogant pride that poisons the truth you hear
I know
The bigoted tongue that tears apart all your fear
Pontificate you faded star
Go on and show them who you really are
You can lie to the papers
You can hide from the press
You can fake it on stage
You can crawl from your cage
You can search and destroy
You can kill but depend on it
I know your tainted flesh
I know your filthy soul
I know each trick you played
Whore you laid
Dream you stole
I know the bed in the room in the wall
In the house where you got what you wanted then ruined it all
I know the secrets that you keep
I know where you sleep
Jeff in NYC
I have pretty much hated Corgan since he bumped (literally) into me at ArtChicago years ago and my drawings fell to the floor. His response? “Watch where you’re fucking going!” He then proceeded to step on one of my drawings and tell the guy he was with “They were probably shitty drawings anyway.”
JumpingUp
@Jeff in NYC: If that happened just like you report, then I’ll agree he sounds like a scumbag.
Sebizzar
@Mav: Well i only know their song “1979” cause i heard it on the radio this year & love it, but that’s about it. I didn’t think the singer was this much of a jerk!
Lefty
This “ugly piece of shit” Corgan hasn’t written a decent song in 15 years. And even then the Smashing Pumpkins were mediocre crap. Shame she still makes the news, even if for the wrong reasons…
velocifero
He is a sexist red neck and has always been. When Lisa Harritan auditioned for SP he told her he couldn’t believe a “chick” could be such a good musician. Then when SP broke up and Harritan went onto be music director for some of the biggest acts, Corrigan ranted about her on line. He is a has been and frankly SP where only as good as the musicians around him. When hen broke up the band because he was jealous of his more talented band mates, his true non talent was exposed.
InLikeInk
It is this kind of trashy behavior that makes other thrans-gendered people look bad. Whatever people want to tell themselves, to ensure they are being politically correct, the kind of stunt this girl pulled on this idiot, clearly he is an idiot, anyone in his place would feel that he had been duped by a dude. This kind of behavior invites confusion around serious issues, and have the potential of being quite deadly to other trans-gendered people. Put yourself in his place. You could hardly be confronted with a penis in bed and think you just met the woman of your dreams. Get real!!
Joshua
I used to like Billy, now that I know he is so anti-trans I hate him. Yes I know hate is a strong word, but his words are very mean and hateful.
laughriotgirl
Interesting… I lived in Chicago for 5 years and the rumors among the trans working gals was that Corrigan was totally switch and ALWAYS tried to get out of paying – to the point of being a loud enough douche that the gals would do anything just to get him to shut up.
I find it more likely that he went home with a non-working trans gal who wasn’t into what he wanted to do (had to pay someone to do) *and* people he knew saw them leave together. Saving face and hiding his actions could lead him to concoct a story that relied on the old saw of “tricking trannies” out to seduce unsuspecting straight guys. Let’s face it, LiveJournal isn’t exactly a bastion of truth, honesty and unbiased observations.
The rest… Billy can eat glass and hasn’t been relevant – like ever.
jason
The liberal music media have been fawning over Corgan for years.
jason
I think Corgan was looking in the mirror while uttering the ugly pig line.
Adman
The thing about Billy is his Catholic tastes. I remember taking in the whole framing of SP, their techno/punk fashion style yet rock music devotee lead singer, his crystal clear issues with masculinity, (he vamps, acts campy, and sounds off like the General Patton of rock n’ roll. Isn’t that newish and coolesque, kids?) and autocratic Irish American temperament, and thinking.
Hmmmm I thought, this guy reminds me of all my womanizing, (while down low cocksucking to pay off gambling debts, NOT GAY!! NO WAY!!!) upstanding, (volunteer firemen staying in the know with “the guys” “down the station”, to buy the crap that falls off of the back of boosted panel vans) dyed in the wool Benedictine Catholic church gossip loving Irish uncles.
It’s an entirely different ball of wax. You have to think “Good Will Hunting” with all of the Matt Damon characters’ initial venal cowardice and none of the brains. Then, imagine this unsavory mix of plebian destitution crowding around this latest piece of meat like the chicken hawks they are. They cadge and cajole him into his “persona” (sellout rockstar pose) knowing the whole while he will come to believe anything they tell him with a little success. Understand how smoothly boring and completely uninteresting the typical personality of these people is. It’s like the surface off an egg shell, and twice as brittle. Actual charisma might burn down the neighborhood with these people.
If someone can prove to me that Billy hasn’t had a Chicago record industry daddy fucking him blind while whoring him on record the last twenty years, you might convince me. Maybe. But then the neighborhood intuition is hard to shake, you know? “Courtney Love is my dear friend?” Really? He’s just keeping Daddy happy, as usual.
A.D.
Ironically, his insults describe him perfectly.
Little Kiwi
poor cowardly Darrell who can’t put a face and name to his ugly words.
Darrell, stop blaming Trans Activists for the fact that your father hated having you for a son.
Jack E. Jett
Wait….ALL this over a pedal…? The world is falling apart and he goes ballistic over this?
Opheliac
@Darrell: Bitch, you’re on Queerty. Not some site for bitter, old, WASP gay men. So please, GTFO. I might not be trans, but they sure as hell deserve basic fucking human rights. And stop straightsplaining, please. You won’t get away with that shit here.
ewe
@Darrell: I doubt you even know one transgendered person. That “movement” you speak of emerged because of transgendered inclusiveness. Straight women routinely deceive straight men so why are picking on transgendered people? Not that your example has any merit. You take dumps too and i don’t think your own gender would want to be in that same room. Many transgendered people are gorgeous on the outside and inside. One thing is for sure. I know i don’t like YOU.
missanthrope
@Darrell:
lol, your pitiful. This isn’t the “get off my lawn” article.
Laughriotgirl
@Darrell: “BTW, I see from the comments above that the gay civil rights movement will soon be saddled with a new “trans” issue, the right of trannies to deceive straight men into sleeping with them.”
You got that from the comments? Really?? I don’t recall anyone advocating that position at all. Funny though, as a straight woman, I see PLENTY of gay men trying their level best to seduce straight guys. I know of gay guys who will hang out near straight bars trying to score intoxicated hetero guys. Heck, how much of your porn is DEVOTED to tricking/picking up/pressuring straight guys into sex?
Lefty
@Laughriotgirl: er, there’s quite a lot of straight women who try to “turn” gay men. Your point is?
I’m always baffled when homophobes turn up on gay sites and don’t seem to realise how ridiculous that makes them.
gullible
I don’t believe the story about his date with a tranny – it’s just his word against hers, and it’s always possible that the great pumpkin is lying.
Laughriotgirl
@Lefty: Then talk to your buddy Darrell, he’s the one who is inserting some mythical “tranny agenda” that involved seducing/tricking straight men. When most of the “tricking” I’ve seen isn’t coming from trans women, but gay guys.
I’m always baffled when people who can’t follow along feel the need to comment…
Lefty
@Laughriotgirl: I think what Darrell said is disgusting (I’ve come across similar sentiments on here before and called people out on it) but that doesn’t justify making equally invalid generalisations about gay men. There are loads of people I think, gay, straight, male, female, who are turned on by the idea of “turning” someone.
Scott
Why is he getting so heated over a pedal? I thought this guy had money. Anyways, he sounds like a real jerk. The Smashing Pumpkins WERE a great band but you can thank the 3 other former members for making that happen.
bluegirl
Well, at least I know why Nicole Fiorentino left the band… probably stumbled upon that livejournal post, considering the interview she did about leaving and indirectly saying “LGBT right is something I’m into.” etc. etc.
What a shitty band with shitty morals, good music up until Machina II, (with exception to being a huge Nicole fan) and pretty much irrelevant now.