John Lydon claims it is “tasteless” of Sex Pistols to benefit from the Queen’s death
Former frontman of punk legends the Sex Pistols, John Lydon, or Johnny Rotten as he is known in the scene, has publicly declared that he wants to “distance himself” from his old bandmates’ attempts to “cash in” on the death of the late monarch Queen Elizabeth II, who passed away on September 8th.
Despite being the voice of the punk anthem ‘God Save the Queen’, a parody of the British monarchy, Lydon has now changed his stance. Taking to the Public Image Ltd Twitter, the vocalist has claimed that his former bandmates “have approved a number of requests” that are at odds with his beliefs.
Although Lydon and Sex Pistols released ‘God Save the Queen’ right before the Queen’s Silver Jubilee back in 1977, and he was a party to all the notorious publicity stunts that came with it, he now finds it “tasteless and disrespectful” to reap economic gains from her passing.
Today (September 15th), Lydon’s representatives took to Public Image’s Twitter to explain his most recent disgreement with the other living members of the Sex Pistols.
They wrote: “John Lydon wishes to distance himself from any Sex Pistols activity which aims to cash in on Queen Elizabeth II’s death. The musicians in the band and their management have approved a number of requests against John’s wishes on the basis of the majority court-ruling agreement.”
“In John’s view, the timing for endorsing any Sex Pistols requests for commercial gain in connection with ‘God Save The Queen’ in particular is tasteless and disrespectful to the Queen and her family at this moment in time”, the statement continued.
“John wrote the lyrics to this historical song, and while he has never supported the monarchy, he feels that the family deserves some respect in this difficult time, as would be expected for any other person or family when someone close to them has died.”
Lydon and his representatives are yet to comment further on the matter. However, a spokesperson for the Sex Pistols has responded to the claims made by Lydon: “We cannot understand what he would be referring to. Other than a couple of requests for use of imagery or audio in news reports on The Queen and her impact on culture, there’s nothing new relating to ‘God Save The Queen’ being promoted or released in any way.”
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