John Lydon reveals ‘The Masked Singer’ fee is funding new Public Image Ltd album
John Lydon has revealed his fee from appearing on The Masked Singer is set to fund a new album with Public Image Ltd.
In an episode that aired on ITV on January 10th, Lydon, as his character Yak, delivered a rendition of Olivia Newton-John’s ‘Physical’, after performing the Tom Jones hit ‘Sex Bomb’ on an earlier episode.
He then lost his sing-off against another masked celebrity using the alias Monkey Business, which led to the former Sex Pistols frontman having the indignity of revealing his identity to an audience of millions watching at home.
Following his eviction from the series, Lydon reflected on his time on The Masked Singer during an interview on This Morning on January 12th.
“Fun, firstly. Mostly, accurately, the money,” Lydon honestly revealed on This Morning when asked about his reasons to appear on the family-friendly entertainment show.
The punk icon then explained why the money has come in handy, sharing, “The money has now gone and paid for us (Public Image Ltd) to go and record in Portugal for a solid month. And, a little holiday afterwards.”
Lydon then confirmed that his bandmates didn’t know that he had appeared on The Masked Singer, but did confess, “They were wondering where I got the money from the studio”, before saying that “they never put the two together”.
The vocalist previously appeared on the US version of The Masked Singer in 2021 as a character titled Jester. However, his reasoning for starring on that series was not financially motivated, and instead was due to his wife, Nora Foster, who later died in 2023 after a lengthy battle with Alzheimer’s.
He explained on This Morning: “That was before the death of my lovely wife, so I did it for completely different reasons. I wanted her to enjoy that and see if she could guess if it was me before she died. And she totally went, ‘It’s you’. Alzheimer’s or not, ‘That’s you’.”
Meanwhile, Lydon recently shared that none of his former bandmates in the Sex Pistols contacted him after Nora’s death, telling The Times, “I expected some kind of connection when Nora died, but nothing.”
Last week, Public Image Ltd wrapped up their UK tour, but they are set to return to the road in South America in April. Their last album, End of World, arrived in 2023.
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