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John Lydon insists he’ll “never forgive” his former Sex Pistols bandmates after losing his lawsuit attempting to block the use of their music in Danny Boyle’s Disney+ biopic, Pistol.
Lydon, 70, was successfully sued by guitarist Steve Jones and drummer Paul Cook in 2021 after a court confirmed that a contract the band signed in 1988 meant only a majority vote was needed to license music rights.
At the time, Lydon was caring for his wife, Nora Foster, who had Alzheimer’s; she died in 2023, aged 80.
“I’ll never forgive them for the way that they piled that court case on me while my wife was dying of Alzheimer’s,” Lydon told Rolling Stone in a new interview. “It was a most unfortunate act on their part.”
He added: “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.”
At the time of the court decision, Lydon said it was “dumbfounding” to him that the rights to the band’s music could be given without his consent.
“I am the lead singer and songwriter, front man, image, the lot, you name it. I put it there. How is that not relevant? It is dumbfounding to me,” he said. “It is so destructive to what the band is and so I fear that the whole project might be extremely negative.”
He added: “How can anyone think that this can proceed without consulting me and deal with my personal life in this, and my issues in this, without any meaningful contact with me before the project is announced to the world. I don’t think there are even words that I can put forward to explain quite how disingenuous this is.”
In the same Rolling Stone interview, Lydon shut down any possibility of a potential reunion, declaring: “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.”
For his part, bassist Glen Matlock has also ruled out the idea of sharing a stage with Lydon again, saying earlier this year that “it’s just not gonna happen”.
In 2025, Lydon claimed to The Times that none of his former Sex Pistols bandmates reached out to him following his wife’s death.
“I expected some kind of connection when Nora died, but nothing,” he said.
The Sex Pistols are currently touring in celebration of 50 years of punk, with original members Jones, Cook and Matlock, and musician Frank Carter on vocal duties.
Lydon has been touring with his band, Public Image Ltd.
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