‘Never asked if I was the mayor,’ says Huntington man in Bill de Blasio mix-up

A Long Island man named Bill DeBlasio — not the former New York City mayor — stands at the center of an international media blunder after a British newspaper mistakenly quoted him criticizing mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.

The Times of London has since deleted the story and apologized, admitting its reporter had been “misled” into publishing comments from the wrong Bill de Blasio (note capitalization and spacing difference), multiple outlets have reported.

In follow-up interviews, the Huntington cybersecurity pro insisted he didn’t impersonate anyone. He simply answered questions that landed in his inbox.

“I never once said I was the mayor,” the other DeBlasio told Semafor. “He never addressed me as the mayor.”

The confusion began when a Times reporter emailed Long Island DeBlasio seeking comment on Mamdani’s policies.

The 1984 Walt Whitman High School graduate replied, but he said he didn’t realize that his words would soon be published and attributed to one of the most recognizable political names in New York.

Within hours of the story going live, the real Bill de Blasio called the article “entirely false and fabricated,” setting off a media firestorm that ended with the Times pulling the piece and issuing an apology. He has repeatedly posted on X about the Times’ snafu, demanding the publication delete the story from its website.

But DeBlasio bristled at the idea that he was some sort of impostor. He pointed out that he had always used his real name — Bill DeBlasio — and that any confusion was not of his making.

The New York Times even referred to him as a “de Blasio impersonator,” a label he said is completely unfair.

Sharing a name with the former mayor has been more burden than novelty over the years, DeBlasio said. He noted that he his email inbox for a decade has been flooded with “brutal, vicious hate mail.”

DeBlasio, a classic car enthusiast and avid baseball and hockey fan, said he actually met the former mayor once, at a New York Mets game in 2016.

Though DeBlasio blames this week’s media mishap on sloppy journalism, back in 2020 he told a Mel Magazine writer that he often plays along and responds to emails, pretending to be the mayor.

_{Top photo: Former Mayor Bill de Blasio met Long Island’s Bill DeBlasio at a Mets game in 2016 (Facebook)}