Ex-NY mayor Bill de Blasio meets Bill DeBlasio after Mamdani mix-up

The former mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio, on Thursday chatted with a Long Island wine importer named Bill DeBlasio, after a kerfuffle this week in which a UK reporter interviewed the wrong Bill de Blasio about mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.

The ex-mayor is an ally of Mamdani, but an interview earlier this week, published by The Times of London, made waves by saying that he had called Mamdani’s proposals unworkable.

“Zohran Mamdani ally Bill de Blasio says his policies ‘don’t add up,’” the headline said.

De Blasio immediately said the interview was fabricated and that he had never spoken with the reporter.

It later emerged that the reporter had contacted the wine importer, DeBlasio, who had played along by formulating a response with ChatGPT. (The two write their names differently — the ex-mayor with a lower-case “d” and the wine importer with a capital “D,” and no space before “Blasio.”)

“I’m Bill DeBlasio. I’ve always been Bill DeBlasio,” the other DeBlasio told a reporter for the Semafor news outlet who knocked on his door. DeBlasio was in Florida and spoke with the reporter through his Ring doorbell.

“I never once said I was the mayor,” DeBlasio said. “I just gave him my opinion.”

The Times of London reporter had contacted the wine importer DeBlasio via email. It wasn’t clear how he had obtained his contact information.

The mistake has been a major embarrassment for The Times of London, which retracted the story and apologized.

The two Bills chatted in a CNN interview on Friday.

"I thought somebody was going to fact check it somewhere along the line and call me out, and say 'this is rubbish.'"

Bill de Blasio comes face to face with … Bill DeBlasio. Both men talk to CNN's Erin Burnett after a newspaper reporter mixed up a Long Island wine seller with… pic.twitter.com/DTGOFEp9gG

— Erin Burnett OutFront (@OutFrontCNN) October 31, 2025

DeBlasio from Long Island said, “It’s not the first time this has happened.”

“People just go searching. They send it to my name at yahoo, my name at gmail,” he said. “I used to ignore it but I have a little fun with it sometimes.”

He said he had received emails meant for the former mayor for years, most of them insulting, and that sometimes he played along, for example, telling those complaining about snow on the city’s streets to “go shovel it yourself.” Ex-mayor de Blasio said he “had no idea” this was going on.

The other DeBlasio said he posted the email from the reporter on his Facebook page, asking his friends if he should answer. His friends egged him on.

“I never thought it would get to that level,” he said in the CNN interview.
“I thought somebody was going to fact-check somewhere along the line and call me out.”

Ex-mayor de Blasio handled the situation with humor.

“I’m upset that this guy’s better looking than me,” he said.

“It’s funny on one level, but I agree with the other Bill. How did no one check?”

Long Island DeBlasio has also revealed that the two met before — at a New York Mets game in 2016, when he approached the mayor with his ID card and the two snapped a photo together.