With the Sex Pistols, he penned singles including "Anarchy in the U.K.", "God Save the Queen", and "Holidays in the Sun", the content of which precipitated what one commentator described as the "last and greatest outbreak of pop-based moral pandemonium" in Britain.

[11] His parents, Eileen Mary (née Barry), and John Christopher Lydon (died 2008),[12] were working-class immigrants from Ireland who moved into a two-room Victorian flat in Benwell Road, in the Holloway area of north London.

[13][14] At the time, the area was largely impoverished, with a high crime rate[citation needed] and a population consisting predominantly of working-class Irish and Jamaican people.

Lydon spent summer holidays in his mother's native County Cork, where he suffered name-calling for having an English accent, a prejudice he claims he still receives today even though he travels under an Irish passport.

He belonged to a local gang of neighbourhood children and would often end up in fights with other groups, something he would later look back on with fond memories: "Hilarious fiascoes, not at all like the knives and guns of today.

Throughout the entire experience, he suffered from hallucinations, nausea, headaches, periods of coma, and a severe memory loss that lasted for four years,[20] whilst the treatments administered by the nurses involved drawing fluid out of his spine with a surgical needle, leaving him with a permanent spinal curvature.

With his father often away, employed variously on building sites or oil rigs, Lydon got his first job aged ten as a minicab dispatcher, something he kept up for a year while the family was in financial difficulty.

McLaren was said to have been upset when Lydon revealed during a radio interview that his influences included progressive experimentalists like Magma, Can, Captain Beefheart and Van der Graaf Generator.

Vicious' chaotic relationship with girlfriend Nancy Spungen, and his worsening heroin addiction, caused a great deal of friction among the band members, particularly with Lydon, whose sarcastic remarks often exacerbated the situation.

Lydon closed the final Sid Vicious-era Sex Pistols concert in San Francisco's Winterland in January 1978 with a rhetorical question to the audience: "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?"

[37] The Sex Pistols' disintegration was documented in Julien Temple's satirical pseudo-biographical film, The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1980), in which Jones, Cook and Vicious each played a character.

[citation needed] In 1987, a new line-up was formed consisting of Lydon, former Siouxsie and the Banshees guitarist John McGeoch, Allan Dias on bass guitar in addition to drummer Bruce Smith and Lu Edmunds.

In 1992, Lydon, Dias and McGeoch were joined by Curt Bisquera on drums and Gregg Arreguin on rhythm guitar for the album That What Is Not, which featured the Tower of Power horns on two songs and Jimmie Wood on harmonica.

Aided by Keith and Kent Zimmerman, and featuring contributions from figures including Paul Cook, Chrissie Hynde, Billy Idol and Don Letts, the work covered his life up until the collapse of the Sex Pistols.

The series was originally developed as a radio vehicle for Gimarc's book, Punk Diary 1970–79, but after bringing Lydon onboard, it was expanded to cover notable events from most of the second half of the 20th century.

In November 1997, Lydon appeared on Judge Judy fighting and winning a suit filed by his former tour drummer Robert Williams for breach of contract, assault and battery.

[53]During an April 2013 tour of Australia, Lydon was involved in a television interview for The Project that resulted in a publicised controversy, as he was labelled "a flat out, sexist, misogynist pig" by one of the panellists on the Australian programme.

[54] Lydon conducted the interview from Brisbane while on PiL's first tour of Australia in twenty years – first announced in December 2012 – during which concerts were held in the capital cities of Sydney and Melbourne.

[55] Lydon was cast to play the role of King Herod for the North American arena tour of Andrew Lloyd Webber's sung-through rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar.

[59][60] Lydon explained the origin of his stage name, Johnny Rotten, in a feature interview with The Daily Telegraph in 2007: he was given the name in the mid-1970s, when his lack of oral hygiene led to his teeth turning green.

[75][76] Having known each other since childhood[77] and both lived in Finsbury Park, London, they were friends for more than 50 years, with Rambo having been described as "Lydon's minder, his hairdresser, his signet-ring designer, his fellow traveller, his mate.

"[90] Lydon criticised the paramilitary organisations involved in The Troubles in Northern Ireland, remarking that the Provisional Irish Republican Army and the Ulster Defence Association were "like two mafia gangs punching each other out ...

"[92] Before Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, Lydon said, in response to questions about his prospects: "No, I can't see it happening, it's a minority that support him at best, and it's so hateful and ignorant.

Lydon said that there were "many, many problems with (Trump) as a human being" but defended him against accusations of racism: "What I dislike is the left-wing media in America are trying to smear the bloke as a racist and that's completely not true.

"[99] He has been a supporter of the NHS since receiving treatment for meningitis at age 7, stating in 2014: "I want national health and education to always be of the highest agenda and I do not mind paying tax for that.

[102] In 2010, when Elvis Costello and Roger Waters announced their intention to cancel performances in Israel and boycott the country, Lydon elected to continue with a Public Image Ltd concert in Tel Aviv.

"[103] In a 1978 BBC Radio 1 interview, Lydon alluded to the sexual abuses committed by Jimmy Savile, and mainstream social forces' suppression of negative information about him, decades before it became a public scandal.

"[25] Lydon expressed his view on gay couples raising children in a 10 February 2005 interview on the BBC's Sunday morning religious programme The Heaven and Earth Show.

"[95] Lydon described Brexit advocate Nigel Farage as "fantastic" and that he wanted to shake his hand after his altercation on the River Thames with anti-Brexit campaigner Bob Geldof.

[98] In a 2021 interview with the Yorkshire Post, Lydon said that he previously voted for the Labour Party as a young man due to coming from a working class background, but stated "I do not recognise them any more" and accused contemporary British and American media of "walking hand in glove with left-wing politics".