Billy Corgan On Criticism Of Booking Tyrus In NWA, Says He Separates Talent From the Person

In an interview with Fightful, Billy Corgan spoke about criticism for booking Tyrus in NWA and said he is able to separate the talent from the person. Tyrus is a controversial figure due to a sexual harassment lawsuit filed against him several years ago. Here are highlights:

On criticism of NWA booking Tyrus: “Yeah, I don’t get into that because to me, that’s such a weird thing. ‘Cause I get some of that, too. I always just kind of scratch my head. There’s a longstanding thing in music, if you’ll allow me to go the other direction for a second, can you separate the singer and the songs? We get into that sometimes in wrestling. Can you separate the talent as a person?”

On his history with Tyrus: “In the case of Tyrus, people need to understand that he and I go back to TNA. John Gaburick, when he was running TNA, one of my assignments is he would give me the people in the castle he thought were difficult personalities. So who did he give me? He gave me Tyrus, he gave me Nick Aldis. He gave me James Storm. He gave me a few other people. I found working with all of them great. All I found was that they needed to be heard and be given a fair chance to be the talented people that they are. So my relationship with him goes back. When you get into a scenario where I’m supposed to listen to other people’s opinions about a person that I know and I have worked with for years and I know personally, I always defer to the person that I know. So I don’t think that there’s anything to defend. If people can’t separate those things in their own minds and they bring that into the wrestling product, well that’s their decision.”

On being willing to take the heat for controversial decisions: “They’re the consumer. As we say, they can vote with their feet. To me, I’ve dealt with that my whole music life and I always think, ‘Okay, well. That’s your decision. I don’t really know what to do with that.’ I think when you sell into that, you’re opening the door to a lot of stuff that there’s no walking back. In essence, who books this promotion? Who decides who’s featured? Who decides who gets hired? Who decides who stands there in the ring? Well, it’s me. So ultimately if you want to criticize me for those decisions, that’s fine. But I’ve already thought all this through. No one’s gonna tell me anything I don’t already know is what I’m trying to say.”