Hitting the right note has never been John Lydon’s greatest talent. It helped to define him as the sneering front man of Britain’s most notorious punk pioneers, The Sex Pistols.
But, in a year when punk turned 50 and he became 70 – and at the start of a talking tour of 81 UK theatres – his views seem less about Anarchy in the UK and more about being plain nasty. From the Gallagher brothers to Vivienne Westwood and Orlando Bloom – it seems few people escape an acid tongue-lashing.
Of his home in Malibu, USA, he says: “We bought the house cheap when my wife Nora was ill [diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, she died in 2023] as it was all on one floor. It worked out fine…but it did not work out with all the neighbours who moved in next door, like Orlando Bloom. A nice fella, gotta tell ya, but go f*** off with your save the planet stuff. The bloke drives a Moto Guzzi, the noisiest, smelliest Italian bike in the whole word. He deafens all the wild ducks for miles around.”
To see more of the stories you love from The Mirror and to find them easily in Google then make us your preferred source. Free and easy-to-do, just click on the link here to find more from The Mirror at the top of your feed.
Speaking to fans, who paid £90 to meet their hero, John insisted he was the original architect of the Sex Pistols, formed in 1975, managed by music impresario Malcolm McLaren and styled by his then girlfriend, designer Vivienne Westwood. She supplied their bondage gear from her boutique, Sex, on London’s King’s Road. John says: “I loved being in the Sex Pistols. They were the greatest band ever. We took no prisoners. It was pure, full-on chaos.”
This may explain his thin-skinned reaction to the reforming of the band – without him – for a number of live concerts, since August 2024, with Frank Carter on vocals. This followed a legal dispute between John and the rest of the band over the use of their music in the 2022 Disney+ biographical mini-series, Pistol.
Just last week, John branded his ex-cohorts – Glen Matlock, Steve Jones and Paul Cook – a bunch of “deceitful lying hyenas” live on ITV’s breakfast show, Good Morning Britain. Speaking at the first night of his I Could Be Wrong, I Could Be Right tour at the Watford Palace Theatre on Tuesday, he continues: “F*** off get Carter. I am not too upset that they go out live without me in that way. But I am very upset they planned it for three years along with that Sex Pistols ‘mockumentary’ without one word towards me.”
He is equally scathing about Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood, saying: “They were middle class and used to say ‘oh, we know all about rebellion you know.’ Clothes matter to the working class, as it is projection. But when it gets into a uniform we used to say ‘f*** that. we were not interested in looking like the rest of the sheep.’ I weren’t dressed head to toe in Sex shop s***.”
Moving on to Oasis, he revels in goading Noel and Liam Gallagher, saying they were privileged for having an outdoor loo. He says: “They have got their own toilets in their own back yard and they are calling me posh. Growing up in London, we had no indoor toilet, no indoor bath, no real facilities.”
But John shows surprising compassion for Sex Pistols bandmate Sid Vicious and musician Pete Doherty. He says: “I was asked about Pete Doherty. There is a man, he is suffering. That poor sausage, Doherty.”
Sid Vicious, who died aged 21 in 1979 in New York, from an accidental heroin overdose, a day after being released on bail awaiting trial for the murder of his girlfriend Nancy Spungen, was. he says “one of my best mates.”
Of Sid’s heroin addiction, he says: “I watched him slowly destroy himself with that. It was too much of a burden that we put him under. The pressure was overwhelming for him. God bless Sid. I miss him like f*** man. Sidney!”
He is also positive about RIchard Branson, who signed the Sex Pistols to Virgin Records – releasing their single God Save the Queen and their album Never Mind the Bollocks.The use of foul language landed them in court in Nottingham. But John says: “It was just me and Richard Branson who turned up in an Aston Martin and won the case, as they are true Anglo Saxon words.”
Fresh back in the UK, following his band PiL’s successful tour of America last year, John has only praise for his late wife and never strayed during their 44 year marriage. He says: “People have never said I am a sexual person. I have never been touched, fondled and I have never fondled or touched. I am a useless punk rocker. Throughout my entire career, nobody has ever wanted to touch or fondle me. I am what you call a f***ing awkward b******. Two left feet, ugly as f**!”
Releasing a new black and white portrait of himself, having a cigarette, he explains why he still smokes, saying: “Because chimneys are good. Do you like my new belly? Not many can afford this. I want to make it a feature. The only thing I ever really wash is my underwear. Shirts, can’t afford them. Socks, who needs them? And I am into Bamboo underpants.”
Perhaps even more shocking than his insults, controversial views and the state of his underwear, is John’s devotion to Abba. Recalling an incident with Sid Vicious, as they waited for a plane in Stockholm Airport, he says: “We were stuck there for like 15 hours and I think we were a little inebriated and Sid spots these white fur coats way off into the distance and he goes ‘Abba!’
“This was Sid’s favourite band and he ran at them full speed going ‘Abba’ and when he got there he vomited on the first girl’s coat. Pebble dash! We all ended up in the nick that night, but at least he got to meet Abba.”
And, in tribute to the band, while John admits he is no ‘Dancing Queen,’ he closes his show with his own ‘Pretty Vacant’ version of Fernando.
*A new photographic memoir, John Lydon Archive, is out next month, priced from £49.99. To order it or book tickets for his speaking tour, visit www.johnlydon.com .
Some of John Lydon’s most memorable bum notes
– He made his name with hits denigrating the ‘facist regime’, yet in late 2020 he supported Republican president Donald Trump’s reelection campaign, saying: “He’s the only sensible choice.”
– In 2005, the singer sparked outrage on the BBC’s Sunday morning religious programme, The Heaven and Earth Show, by criticising single parenting and same-sex marriages, saying: “I don’t like the idea of one-parent families. It’s very tough on the kids. They grow up missing something. I find the same with same-sex marriages; there is something missing. There is a point to male and female – and for a child to develop, it needs both those aspects.”
– In a 2002 newspaper interview, he condemned ‘cancel culture’ and sparked controversy over remarks about the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement “making problems that really were almost semi-non existent.” Of cancel culture, he said: “There’s no understanding, no empathy for another point of view. No room for being an individual. That’s why it’s easy for me to say ‘I like Trump’, and see how that kicks off.”
– In 2010, John ploughed into the Israel-Palestine debate when Pink Floyd star Roger Waters and Elvis Costello quit plans for gigs in Israel, while he pushed ahead with a Public Image Ltd show in Tel Aviv. He told an interviewer: “If Elvis Costello wants to pull out of a gig in Israel because he’s suddenly got this compassion for Palestinians, then good on him.”
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: mirror.co.uk
