Nora Forster, Wife of John Lydon, Dead at 80

Nora Forster, the spouse of former Sex Pistol John Lydon, has died at the age of 80.

She handed away following a prolonged battle with Alzheimer’s; she was first recognized in 2018. (*80*) information was introduced on Lydon’s social media.

“It is with a heavy coronary heart that we share the unhappy information that Nora Forster – John Lydon’s spouse of almost [five] many years – has handed away,” the statement read. “Nora had been residing with Alzheimer’s for a number of years. In which period John had change into her full-time carer. Please respect John’s grief and permit him area.”

Forster, who was born in Germany in 1942, was an heiress to a wealthy publishing family. After school, she worked for a time for her father’s media company and then launched a career as a music promoter, working with acts like Jimi Hendrix, Wishbone Ash and Yes. She later moved to London, where she encouraged her young daughter, Ariane Forster — later known as Ari Up, singer for the Slits — to pursue music.

She continued to work in music in London, also helping to financially back bands like Sex Pistols and the Clash. She met Lydon at Vivienne Westwood’s clothing store, Sex, in 1975. “She shone, she glowed, from approach throughout the opposite facet of the room,” Lydon wrote in one of his autobiographies. Nine years later, they married, eventually settling in California. In 2010, Ari Up died at the age of 48 after a battle with breast cancer, and Forster and Lydon become the guardians of her three children.

Since Forster’s  2018 diagnosis, Lydon has often spoken about Forster’s health struggles. “I do know it’ll deteriorate into one thing actually, actually horrible, however we’re going through it with a way of dignity,” he told the Sunday Times in 2021.

“I imply, it could be simple sufficient to run away and say, ‘Oh, it is not my accountability; issues aren’t the identical.’ Bollocks to that. I’m John. When I make a dedication it is without end and I stand by that and I’m very proud to do the very best I can for her. We’ve been collectively now 45 years; we’re not going to alter something.”

When Lydon’s band Public Image Ltd. competed in the Eurovision song contest earlier this year, their song “Hawaii” was framed as a “love letter” to Forster. Lydon dedicated it to “everybody going by powerful occasions on the journey of life, with the particular person they look after probably the most. It’s additionally a message of hope that finally love conquers all.”