John Lydon has opened up about his experiences as a carer.
The punk icon’s wife Nora Foster was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2018, and since then Lydon has acted as a full-time carer.
The two married in the late 70s, while Nora’s daughter Ari Up – of The Slits – passed away in 2010 from breast cancer.
Speaking to The Sunday Times, John Lydon has frankly discussed his life, saying it can get “overwhelmingly sad”.
He said: “Alzheimer’s is a wicked, debilitating, slow, deliberate process, but we’re going through that together. She doesn’t forget me. She forgets everything else but not me.”
The Sex Pistols frontman added: “I know it’s going to deteriorate into something really, really terrible, but we’re facing it with a sense of dignity… When I make a commitment it’s for ever and I stand by that and I’m very proud to do the best I can for her. We’ve been together now 45 years; we’re not going to change anything.”
“You can as a full-time carer get quite suicidal,” he told the broadsheet. “I will have moments that are overwhelmingly sad and at the same time full of rage. But things are what they are, and you have to take that and accept it and, sadly I’ve got to say, almost enjoy it for the experience. ‘You don’t have those moments (of despair) for very long. You’re quickly knocked back into reality when a piss pot is kicked over.”
John Lydon was at the centre of a storm late last year after insisting he would vote for Donald Trump in the American Presidential election.
He hasn’t lost his bite, however, informing The Sunday Times of his disgust at Danny Boyle’s incoming Sex Pistols biopic.
John Lydon said: “I think that’s the most disrespectful shit I’ve ever had to endure. I mean, they went to the point to hire an actor to play me but what’s the actor working on? Certainly not my character. It can’t go anywhere else (but court)…”
“Sorry, you think you can do this, like walk all over me – it isn’t going to happen. Not without a huge, enormous fucking fight. I’m Johnny, you know, and when you interfere with my business you’re going to get the bitter end of my business as a result. It’s a disgrace.”
The full interview can be found HERE.
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