John Lydon's Biography

John Lydon, also known as Johnny Rotten, was born on 31 January 1956 in London, England.

His parents were Irish immigrants. His father was a skip removal man.

When John Lydon was a child, he contracted meningitis and spent months in a coma.

After being expelled from school for anti-social behaviour, Lydon went to technical college, where he met John Ritchie aka Sid Vicious. Lydon got six O-levels and two A-levels.

Everything changed for John Lydon when Malcolm McLaren put The Sex Pistols together. The punk band comprising of Lydon, Sid Vicious, Steve Jones, Paul Cook, and Glen Matlock made a massive impact on the music scene.

Their record God Save the Queen was banned.

However, John Lydon left after only a couple of years and formed Public Image Limited.

In the early nineties Lydon wrote his biography Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs.

The Sex Pistols had a couple of reunions. John Lydon was reported by MTV to not like the word reunion, when he spoke in 2007 of the Sex Pistols coming together for the 30th anniversary of Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols.

In 1996, the Sex Pistols had a reunion tour and in 2002 they re-formed for a special to coincide with the Queen's Golden Jubilee (and the silver jubilee of God Save the Queen).

In 2004, John Lydon appeared on ITV's I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, where he made his mark, but decided to walk out.

John Lydon is married to Nora Forster and lives in the USA. Nora's daughter, Arianna, sang with The Slits and introduced them.

In 2006 the BBC reported that Janet Small of Chepstow said she had discovered she is the "long-lost half-sister of former Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon."

In February 2009, The Guardian reported that Dairy Crest said the advertising campaign, featuring John Lydon dressed in tweeds, had helped lift sales of Country Life butter by 85% in the most recent quarter.

In July 2011, John Lydon picked up an honour from Mojo. At the ceremony he revealed his house had burnt down two weeks previously.

On 31 March 2017, he published Mr Rotten's Songbook, a book containing all his lyrics.

In January 2023, the BBC reported: "Public Image Ltd - the band John Lydon formed after the Sex Pistols split in 1978 - is in the running to represent Ireland at the Eurovision Song Contest.

"The song, called Hawaii, is described as "a love letter to Lydon's wife of nearly five decades who is living with Alzheimer's."