John Lydon: ‘I’m half the person I was when my wife was alive’

After his wife Nora Foster’s agonising death two years ago, John Lydon has called out his former Sex Pistols bandmates for not supporting him.

In a recent interview, he claimed that guitarist Steve Jones, bassist Glen Matlock, and drummer Paul Cook did not reach out after her death.

Nora died at the age of 80 in April 2023 after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2018.

While John is estranged from his punk legend bandmates, he admitted to The Times he had ‘expected some kind of connection’ but none came.

Earlier this year, ahead of his tour with Public Image Ltd, the 69-year-old singer spoke to Metro about the overwhelming loss.

‘The truth of it is, I’m only half the person I was when she was alive,’ he shared in February. ‘That’s definite, I can feel that hollowness.’

The punk icon spent months ‘coming to grips’ with the loss and hoped his tour with his band Public Image Ltd (PiL) would help him to ‘heal’.

‘I’ve come out of wallowing in alcohol and sadness and self-pity,’ he shared. ‘Which you can’t avoid, it just happens, it’s just in your nature.’

He and Nora were married for over five decades, with John becoming her full-time carer in later years as they lived in a remote home in Los Angeles.

The God Save The Queen hitmaker recalled how ‘painful’ her last day was with Nora in ‘physical and emotional torment.’

‘I’m not sure I’m quite ready to share how intense her agony was,’ he said, a reserved response for the usually outspoken anarchic legend.

He hesitated, becoming emotional before sharing Nora’s ‘whole system was giving up’ and her last day was filled with ‘screaming’, something that still haunts him.

Shortly after her death, John released Hawaii, an incredibly intimate song dedicated to his lost love.

Despite entering it into the Irish Eurovision competition in 2023, he is not yet ready to perform the song on tour as it would put him ‘in such a sad hole’.

‘It’s not the right way to end a set, leaving people feeling down or wallowing in that intense pain and pressure,’ he noted. ‘So I don’t know… but I might find a way of handling it.

‘There are many PiL songs that deal with such depth of personal tragedy, there are many, many times I delve into those emotions. But this one in particular, I think it’s too fresh in my mind.’

Thankfully, Nora did hear the song before her death, which he called a ‘blessing’.

His grief also encompassed the loss of his best friend John ‘Rambo’ Stevens to an aortic heart dissection, seven months after Nora.

He died aged 66 on December 11, 2023 and was John’s long-term manager, producer for several PiL and Sex Pistols albums, and his friend since childhood.

John Lydon’s thoughts on touring in his 60s

Despite his hesitancy about touring without Rambo by his side, John couldn’t help but feel excited for the upcoming shows.

The 28-date UK and Ireland tour, billed as This Is Not The Last Tour, opened in Bristol on May 22 and closed on August 16 in Belfast.

Age and loss have mellowed out the punk legend (slightly), so now his tour antics take a more disciplined approach.

As he sipped a birthday beer, John told Metro: ‘In the very early days, I was not [disciplined] at all. I think nerves played a huge part in that.

‘Being very shy — really — and just fearful of letting people down. I tried every kind of escapism, and I learned very quickly, it’s punishing to be standing up there as a sad sack drunk.’

He mentioned a gig from ‘back in the very early days’ which now he can only semi-remember and stated: ‘I never want to go through that ever again.’

Other stand-out moments from his decades of live performances include falling off stages rather more regularly than he might have hoped.

Mid-afternoon festival slots are some of John’s favourites, but this comes with the downside of the sun in your eyes, making the edge of the stage hard to see.

‘I’m very prone to just falling off,’ he said as he burst into laughter. ‘I tend to ignore [injuries] and carry on to the bitter end but it’s the embarrassment of being such an ape.

‘Such a daft ape that you can fall off such an obvious thing.’

John says fans shouldn’t read too much into the tour’s name, Not The Last Tour, and has no intention of wrapping up any time soon.

The Rise singer also embarked on a 50-date spoken word tour of the UK and Ireland almost immediately after the PiL tour from September 5 through to November 24.

Instead, he just thought it was ‘very witty’ and contrasted the ‘lying hyena nonsense’ of other artists, coyly naming no names.

The artist formerly known as Johnny Rotten says the music industry is ‘riddled’ with artists claiming to be on their final tour but have ‘already booked themselves for five years after’.

Will John Lydon ever reunite with the Sex Pistols?

At the time, John did give his unfiltered thoughts on the Sex Pistols’ ‘karaoke’ tour, potentially inflamed by their alleged lack of contact after Nora.

‘No, I made that clear a long time ago,’ he replied when asked if a reunion tour was ever going to be on the cards.

‘Yeah, they’re impossibly heart-turgid and difficult to deal with and just basically have very bad natures,’ the Anarchy in the UK singer said, getting a little heated.

‘I think going out and doing this is in extremely poor taste. If you don’t want me around, that’s all well and fine, get your stand-up comedian in my place, but leave my words out of it, because it’s clear you don’t understand them.’

A version of this article was originally published on February 22, 2025.

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