John Lydon has claimed his Sex Pistols bandmates did not contact him when his wife Nora Forster died.
The punk group’s former frontman – known as Johnny Rotten – lost his wife of nearly 50 years to Alzheimer’s in April 2023, and became her full-time carer two years after she received her diagnosis.
However, despite anticipating a message from guitarist Steve Jones, bassist Glen Matlock and drummer Paul Cook, Lydon has alleged he did not receive any form of message from the musicians, who are currently performing together with Frank Carter in Lydon’s place.
“I expected some kind of connection when Nora died, but nothing,” he said in a new interview with The Times.
The Independent has contacted The Sex Pistols for comment.
Lydon and Forster married in 1979. Speaking to The Times two months after Forster’s death, Lydon said it “has been much harder than he thought” to deal with the loss.
“I thought I would be able to handle this side of it, but it is, if anything, worse,” he said. “I like to sleep with Nora’s ashes in the cupboard next to the bed because there is no expectancy of meeting her in this life again.”
Reflecting on how he and Forster navigated their relationship despite his public profile, Lydon said: “I have seen relationships crash around me, especially when fame is involved, and I cannot help but think people were too flippant about their life partners.
“Nora and I argued a great deal, but the arguments were so stunning that they made life worthwhile, and we were always honest and open about everything.”
Elsewhere in the new interview, Lydon, who left Sex Pistols in 1979, hit out at the “terrible” 2022 biopic TV show, titled Pistol, directed by Danny Boyle.
Boyle didn’t consult Lydon about the project and previously said he didn’t want the punk musician to like it, a sentiment that left the musician feeling as if the director was “dismantling” the spirit of the raucous music genre.
“What kind of ambition is that?” he said. “It sounds like an act of spite rather than any character understanding.
Lydon continued: “Something in me wanted it to be good, but it might as well have been about the Partridge Family. I don’t like anything to do with it because I wasn’t asked to contribute.”
After leaving The Sex Pistols in 1979, Lydon formed Public Image Ltd, and sporadically reunited with the band in the 1990s and 2000s.
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