Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan has opened up about his unusual port wine birthmarks, which he says he's gone out of his way to hide over the course of more than 30 years in the public spotlight. But now, the 57-year-old is embracing them for the first time, citing the body positivity movement and a model who flaunts similar features.
"I’m a fan of body positivity movements because at the end of the day it is about celebrating what makes us 'us.'" Corgan wrote in an Instagram post on Monday. He also shared a photo of the reddish birthmark covering his hand and arm, along with a second photo of model Carlotta Bertotti, who seeks to defy beauty standards with her own blue birthmark.
"So as you see, here is a beautiful young woman with a birthmark who has embraced her 'difference with grace," Corgan explained.
"My point being that my whole life I’ve endeavored to hide my 'port wine' birthmarks because as you can imagine I was teased unmercifully about them as a child," he continued, noting that even people who have known him for a decade are shocked when they finally notice it.
"And even now strangers will stop me on the street not because they recognize me but because they think something is wrong with me that requires medical attention," Corgan asserted. Among the random questions he said he receives are whether he was burned, sick, contagious, or if the mark is painful to him.
He concluded his post with a positive message, adding, "Whoever you are, I hope you find peace with who you are because: I would like to know that person and no one else."
According to Web MD, port-wine birthmarks, also called "stains," are a kind of vascular birthmark caused when chemical signals in tiny blood vessels don't "turn off," causing them to become larger, turning the skin red due to the extra blood. About three in every 1,000 children are born with a port-wine birthmark somewhere on their body.
