Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan: ‘I almost killed myself three or four times’

Smashing Pumpkins singer Billy Corgan has claimed that he “almost” killed himself several times.

In an interview on Last Call With Carson Daly, the frontman admitted that he had considered committing suicide “about three, four, seven times” but faith in God had stopped him from feeling “like a victim”.

He said: “I almost killed myself about three, four, seven times. I literally started planning my death and what I would leave behind, and what I was gonna write. Three or four times in my life.

“What I finally realised, at least on the back end of this, is that God, at least as I understand God, was there all along. Once I was able to process my reality in that way, I no longer felt like a victim.” You can watch his interview in full by scrolling down to the bottom of the page and clicking.

In November of this year, Corgan told NME that he had entertained suicidal thoughts while working on the band’s classic 1993 album ‘Siamese Dream’. “I was suicidal, and I’d been plotting my own death for about two months,” he said. “And if you’ve ever read anything about the warning signs of suicide one of them is you give away all your stuff, and I’d given away all my stuff, I gave away all my records, I started giving away my guitars.

“I was fantasising about my own death, I started thinking what my funeral would be like and what music would be played, I was at that level of insanity.”

Smashing Pumpkins released their latest studio album, ‘Oceania’, in June of this year.