John Lydon insists he’ll never reconcile with his former Sex Pistols bandmates.
The man formerly known as Johnny Rotten has never been afraid of issuing pointed comments regarding his previous band. Over the years, he’s slammed the group’s other members for reuniting without him and approving the Danny Boyle-helmed miniseries Pistol. Still, in a recent conversation with Rolling Stone, Lydon said it was a different issue that permanently ended his relationship with the other Sex Pistols.
“I’ll never forgive them for the way that they piled that court case on me while my wife was dying of Alzheimer’s,” the singer declared. “It was a most unfortunate act on their part, and then using Disney to strip-mine me.”
Lydon’s Disney remark was in reference to the Pistol series. He sued to stop the use of the Sex Pistols music on the show, only to lose and be faced with extensive fees. The legal battle took place in 2021, while the singer’s wife, Nora Foster, was fighting Alzheimer’s disease. She died in 2023 at the age of 80.
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“If I didn’t raise, say, $10 million after the first week, the case couldn’t go on,” Lydon noted, looking back on the lawsuit. “That’s money I could have spent taking care of my lovely Nora… They knew she was ill.”
John Lydon Says Chance of a Reunion With Sex Pistols Is ‘In the Minus Infinities’
According to Lydon, none of his former bandmates reached out following Nora’s death. He said the chance of a reunion with the Sex Pistols is “in the minus infinities.”
“The dirt that they unloaded on me in a time where I was in real serious grief … No, I cannot forget about that,” the singer declared.
Despite his harsh words, Lydon insisted he’s moved on from the Sex Pistols.
“I don’t have spite in me,” the rocker remarked. “If they’d gone about this another way and were open and friendly with me, who knows what gifts that may have brought, but they decided skullduggery was the order of the day.”
