John Lydon has revealed he was “p***ed off” to discover the Sex Pistols were set to tour without him last year.
The frontman, 69, rose to fame with the punk band under the stage name “Johnny Rotten” in the mid-Seventies with songs such as “God Save the Queen” and “Anarchy in the UK”.
Tensions came to a head between Lydon and former bandmates Steve Jones, Glen Matlock and Paul Cook after he went to court in an unsuccessful attempt to stop their music being used in Danny Boyle’s Pistols series in 2021.
By 2024, Jones, Matlock and Cook had announced a number of London reunion tour dates for which Lydon had been replaced as lead vocalist by singer and tattoo artist Frank Carter.
Speaking to The i paper, Lydon admitted: “When I first heard that the Sex Pistols were touring this year without me it pissed me off. It annoyed me.”
He explained: “I just thought, ‘they’re absolutely going to kill all that was good with the Pistols by eliminating the point and the purpose of it all’.
“They’re trying to trivialise the whole show to get away with karaoke but in the long term I think you’ll see who has the value and who doesn’t,” he added.
“I’ve never sold my soul to make a dollar. It’s the Catholic in me – that guilt I don’t want to trip.”
In recent years Lydon has adopted right-wing political stances including throwing his weight behind Brexit, Donald Trump and Nigel Farage.
Last year, he claimed division in the UK was caused by immigration. Elsewhere in the interview with The i, Lydon – who has lived in Malibu for the past 40 years – said he’ll never return to Britain.
“You can’t go back. It’s changed,” he claimed. “Once you leave a place, you have this romantic vision, but it’s locked into a time 30 or 40 years ago but it’s never going to be the same.
“Things change, even friendships. They shapeshift. Looking back can only make you uncomfortable.”
When asked what he thinks of Donald Trump once again becoming President of the United States, the former punk rocker replied: “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”
“I won’t be fooled again,” he added. “I had high hopes for Obama but then I found out he was nothing but an officious bureaucrat altering every single institution into a political entity before taking into account common sense and life experiences.
“But, if you’re going to repair a broken business, you might as well get a businessman to do it.”
Following Trump’s presidential election victory in 2016, Lydon said: “This is a joy to behold for me. Dare I say, [he could be] a possible friend.”
