‘Dude, You’re Killing Me’: Huntington Man Bill DeBlasio Clears Air On Mayor Mix

By Michael Mashburn From Daily Voice

Will the real Bill de Blasio please stand up?

A Long Island wine importer named Bill DeBlasio says he never pretended to be the former New York City mayor, despite news reports that misidentified him in the final days of the city’s mayoral race.

The 59-year-old Huntington Station native, who shares nearly the same name as former Mayor Bill de Blasio, told Semafor he was wrongly swept into global headlines after responding to an email from a British journalist asking his thoughts on Democrat Zohran Mamdani’s policies.

“I’m Bill DeBlasio. I’ve always been Bill DeBlasio,” he said in an interview with Semafor, conducted Wednesday evening through his Ring doorbell camera while he was in Florida. “I never once said I was the mayor. He never addressed me as the mayor. So I just gave him my opinion.”

The confusion began earlier this week when Times of London reporter Bevan Hurley sent questions about Mamdani’s policy agenda to an email address containing the name “Bill DeBlasio.” The journalist apparently believed he was corresponding with the two-term mayor, whose surname is spelled slightly differently.

Rather than correcting the reporter, DeBlasio admitted he played along, even using ChatGPT to draft a response criticizing Mamdani’s tax plans as unrealistic. “It was all in good fun. I never thought it would make it to print,” he told Semafor.

The Times of London later deleted the article, saying their reporter “had been misled by an individual falsely claiming to be the former New York mayor.” The New York Times described him as a “de Blasio impersonator.”

DeBlasio pushed back on both labels, saying he simply replied under his own name and never pretended to be anyone else. He told Semafor he was frustrated by the coverage and called the reporting “lazy,” though he acknowledged he had been quoted accurately.

The real former mayor forcefully denied any involvement, calling the article “false and fabricated” in a statement posted to X. “It is an absolute violation of journalistic ethics,” he wrote, adding that he supports Mamdani’s campaign.

DeBlasio, the Long Island one, told Semafor he has long endured hate mail intended for the politician and once even met him at a Mets playoff game in 2016. “How bad is it having the same last name as me?” he recalled the mayor asking. His reply: “Dude, you’re killing me.”