Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon competing to represent Ireland in Eurovision with Alzheimer’s awareness song

John Lydon, also known as Johnny Rotten, is competing to represent Ireland in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. The former Sex Pistols frontman said the main reason he is competing is to raise awareness of Alzheimer’s disease.

The singer will be performing the song Hawaii together with his band Public Image Ltd on the Late Late Show on Irish television on Friday February 3, calling it a love letter to his wife Nora Forster who lives with the disease. The couple met in 1975 in Vivienne Westwood’s shop Sex in London, and married four years later.

Reminiscing about the time, Lydon said: “Her absolute independence stuck out to me like no other. She was straight out of a film, just totally individual and oblivious to the fashions of the moment. Of course she was told not to come near me. ‘He’s horrible’. Which piqued her interest.”

On competing in Eurovision, Lydon said the message of the song is more important than winning: “I’m doing it to highlight the sheer torture of what Alzheimer’s is. It gets swept under the carpet, but in highlighting it, hopefully we get a stage nearer to a cure.”

He also added that he won’t be listening to the five other contestants: “I don’t want all that stuff to clutter me up, although if there’s a gold cup in it, I’ll have it.”

John Lydon’s Irish connection

John Lydon was born in London in 1956 to Irish parents, making him eligible to be an Irish citizen. Lydon rose to prominence with the controversial punk band The Sex Pistols, releasing the classic album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols in 1977, spawning songs like God Save the Queen and Holiday in the Sun.

After disbanding in 1978, Lydon formed Public Image Ltd, with which he has released 10 albums to date. Their latest album, What the World Needs Now… was released in 2015.