Former Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) is mourning the loss of his wife of more than four decades, Nora Forster after a battle with Alzheimer’s disease. She was 80.
Lydon, 67, married Forster in 1979, four years after meeting her at SEX, the London punk boutique owned by Vivienne Westwood and her then partner Malcolm McLaren.
Lydon has spoken publicly about caring for his wife, who was diagnosed in 2018.
“It's hideous. So pernicious and vile to watch someone you love just slowly disappear," he told The Sunday Times earlier this year.
In 2021, Lydon told The Telegraph he was “seriously in a state of financial ruin,” in part from the cost of taking care of Forster. “I've got no more savings, no more loans, no pensions. I've got nothing ... I'm f**ked.”
But, in his conversation with The Times, Lydon said it was “worth every moment” and added: “No joy comes without pain and, boy, do I know that now."
Lydon was delighted when Forster recognized him when he was unmasked on an episode of The Masked Singer in 2021. “I wanted to see if she guessed, and she did,” he told The Guardian. “She said, ‘Johnny, it's you!’ It was one of the best experiences of my life.”
Forster’s daughter Ariana, singer with punk band The Slits, died of cancer in 2010. Lydon and Forster became the legal guardians of her children Pablo, Pedro and Wilton.