John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) says the chance of him reuniting with the Sex Pistols is less than zero, or more specifically “minus infinities.”
The punk icon, who continues to tour and record with his band Public Image Ltd, discussed his relationship with his former Sex Pistols bandmates in a new interview with Rolling Stone, saying he hasn’t forgiven them for engaging in a legal battle with him over the use of the band’s music in the FX miniseries Pistol while his wife Nora Forster battled and eventually succumbed to Alzheimer’s disease.
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“I’ll never forgive them for the way that they piled that court case on me while my wife was dying of Alzheimer’s,” said Lydon. “It was a most unfortunate act on their part, and then using Disney to strip-mine me [for FX’s Pistol]…. If I didn’t raise, say, $10 million after the first week, the case couldn’t go on. That’s money I could have spent taking care of my lovely Nora. They knew she was ill.”
Asked to give a number between zero and 100 as to how likely he’d ever perform with the Sex Pistols again, Lydon responded, “It’s 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.”
Lydon went on to say that his former bandmates never reached out to him while Forster was ill, adding, “There was no respect. And to try to put together what I call a mockumentary about the Pistols, and for three years, deliberately not tell me a word, not share any of this with me, and not consider that I might have an opinion on this and then to force that into the law courts, that was really, really untasteful. So no, I don’t hang out with low-renters.”
While he won’t be reuniting with the Sex Pistols anytime soon, or ever, Lydon will hit the road with Public Image Ltd for a North American tour launching in early September (pick up tickets here).
