John Lydon and Nora Forster.Photo: Brian Killian/WireImage
The wife of former Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon has died at the age of 80 after a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.
On Thursday, a management team for Lydon — also known asJohnny Rotten— announced the news in a statement on social media, beginning with “rest in peace Nora Forster.”
“It is with a heavy heart that we share the sad news that Nora Forster - John Lydon’s wife of nearly 5 decades - has passed away. Nora had been living with Alzheimer’s for several years. In which time John had become her full-time carer,” theTwitter postread, alongside a photo of the couple.
“Please respect John’s grief and allow him space. Rest in Peace Nora. Heartfelt condolences to John from Rambo and all at PiL Official,” the statement concluded.
In June 2020, the punk rock icon, 67, revealed that he had become her “full-time carer"in an interviewwithThe Mirror. He also said he “won’t let anyone mess up with her head.”
“For me, the real person is still there,” Lydon said of his wife. “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?”
“I suppose her condition is one of like a permanent hangover for her,” he continued. “It gets worse and worse, bits of the brain store less and less memory and then suddenly some bits completely vanish.”
Though her Alzheimer’s was worsening at the time, he said that it was “amazing” that his wife “never ever forgets me.”
Nora Forster and John Lydon.Fin Costello/Redferns
In 2021, he toldMetro UKthat he had hired several women to help him out.
He also said that he would watch and listen to British comedies with his wife to keep their bond strong.
“Every night after a show, I’m straight home as quick as I can and we’re on FaceTime. There’s little acknowledgments then the last three minutes are gone from her life completely, but she’ll remember things from 20 or 40 years ago absolutely vividly,” he said. “It’s an amazing thing to watch, a human brain deteriorate and yet escalate in clarity in certain things.”
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“But she won’t go down without fighting and she won’t go down without laughing. And she certainly, certainly will be loved every step of the way,” he added.
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common type of dementia, according to theCenters for Disease Control and Prevention. The progressive disease affects parts of the brain that control thought, memory, and language and can sometimes hinder a person’s ability to carry out daily activities.
Lydon — who married Forster in 1979 — first revealed her diagnosis during a radio interview in 2018. At the time, he said that she was in the “mid-stages of Alzheimer’s.”
“The stress is killing me,” Lydon, who had been promoting hisThe Public Image Is Rottendocumentary with his band Public Image Ltd,told Q104.9. “It’s not just the work, but personal family issues of illnesses that are really, really serious to me.”
source: people.com
