Johnny Rotten Sings Alice Cooper on ‘The Masked Singer,’ Hopes to Make Wife With Alzheimer’s Laugh
Sex Pistols / PiL legend John Lydon (Johnny Rotten) revealed himself to be The Jester on The Masked Singer last night, but before you get up in arms about “cringe” or “selling out,” Lydon did the show to entertain his wife, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s.
Lydon and wife Nora have been together for over 45 years. The former Sex Pistol even considered taking care of his ailing wife his “full-time job” for quite some time. “Nora has Alzheimer’s... I am her full-time carer and I won’t let anyone mess up with her head,” Lydon recently told The Mirror. “For me the real person is still there. That person I love is still there every minute of every day and that is my life. It’s unfortunate that she forgets things, well, don’t we all?”
Lydon sang Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out” and “I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow” by Soggy Bottom Boys before revealing himself as the man behind the mask. In his unmasked interview, Lydon spoke beautifully about his wife and folks with Alzheimer’s.
“My wife is very ill, she has Alzheimer’s, but she’s not insane. I love her very much. This kind of thing will make her scream with laughter. I hope she spots me. If she doesn’t, she will at some point because we’ve been together now 45 years, we know each other intimately well and no illness will get in the way of that. That’s a lesson I want to share with all of you — don’t let situations get you down. Use them to your benefit. This show will benefit not only my baby, but hopefully all the other babies out there that need love and affection and attention and a constant reminder that they are a human being after all, even though their memory turns to Swiss cheese.”
Jester / Johnny Rotten Unmasked Interview | Season 6 Ep. 9 | THE MASKED SINGER
In a separate interview with Billboard, Lydon spoke about being a fan of Alice Cooper before he joined the Sex Pistols. “It's one of the things when I first joined the band later to be known as the Sex Pistols that I mimed to. Alice Cooper's ‘School's Out’ and ‘I’m Eighteen’ -- so Alice Cooper is integral to my entire history.”
Watch Lydon’s Masked Singer performances below and click here to order his newest book I Could Be Wrong, I Could Be Right.