{"id":232951,"date":"2026-01-14T15:43:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T15:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/232951\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T15:43:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T15:43:07","slug":"john-lydon-on-why-he-appeared-on-the-masked-singer-mostly-accurately-the-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/232951\/","title":{"rendered":"John Lydon on why he appeared on ‘The Masked Singer’: “Mostly, accurately, the money\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Lydon<\/a> has revealed that his recent appearance on The Masked Singer is helping fund the new Public Image Ltd<\/a> album.<\/p>\n

The punk icon and former Sex Pistol<\/a> frontman was unveiled as being part of the ITV singing contest<\/a> on January 10. He was booted out of the competition after delivering renditions of Olivia Newton-John<\/a>\u2019s \u2018Physical\u2019 and Tom Jones<\/a>\u2019s \u2018Sex Bomb\u2019 while wearing a Yak costume.<\/p>\n

In his exit interview, he playfully joked that the show was \u201chardly\u201d a career highlight, but took part as he \u201chope[d] the fun comes across\u201d.<\/p>\n

Following his eviction from the show \u2013 after losing a sing-off to a person going under the alias \u2018Monkey Business\u2019 \u2013 Lydon looked back at his time on the show during an interview with This Morning, and revealed why he said yes to the series.<\/p>\n

\u201cFun, firstly. Mostly, accurately, the money,\u201d he said, adding that the fee he was paid has gone towards funding the upcoming album from PiL<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe money has now gone and paid for us to go and record in Portugal for a solid month. And, a little holiday afterwards,\u201d he added, before revealing that none of his bandmates worked out that he was on the show.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were wondering where I got the money from the studio\u201d, before saying that \u201cthey never put the two together\u201d.<\/p>\n

Also in the interview, Lydon looked back at how he starred in the US version of the show in 2021 under the disguise of a jester. For that appearance, he said, he wasn\u2019t motivated by money, but instead did it as a lighthearted gesture for his wife, Nora Foster.<\/p>\n

The punk icon lost his wife of nearly five decades in April 2023<\/a> after a long battle with Alzheimer\u2019s disease, and the final two years of her life saw him serve as her full-time carer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was before the death of my lovely wife, so I did it for completely different reasons,\u201d he said. \u201cI wanted her to enjoy that and see if she could guess if it was me before she died. And she totally went, \u2018It\u2019s you\u2019. Alzheimer\u2019s or not, \u2018That\u2019s you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Lydon revealed that he was working on a new PiL album last year, and told NME last February that he was channelling the grief of losing Nora into the songwriting process<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI need to get out of the house,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve done enough wallowing, which of course you can\u2019t avoid, even if you think, \u2018No, be the bigger man\u2019. You cannot stop it. You cannot stop the sadness when it comes on, but enough already.\u201d<\/p>\n

The interview also saw him reveal that the band were going back-to-basics for their 12th album.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not going to be a dismal record. We\u2019re going to take it back to the roots of a proper rock band, tearing the fucking building down. It\u2019s going to be full on,\u201d he said, adding that he was wanting to recapture some \u201craw anger and energy\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all need that. And that will help me mentally no end. It\u2019s like shout therapy,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

The Masked Singer appearance isn\u2019t the only time that Lydon has appeared on television to help fund new material. Back in the 2010s, the frontman became a regular face on British TV by becoming the face of I Can\u2019t Believe It\u2019s Not Butter. He then appeared alongside Katie Price and Peter Andre on ITV\u2019s <\/a>I\u2019m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here!<\/p>\n

In 2010, he told NME that the money was helping PiL reform<\/a>, sharing: \u201cI\u2019m permanently out of pocket, but I\u2019ve got news for you, from the first day I started PiL I was out of pocket.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me it\u2019s an ongoing process. For 18 years I haven\u2019t been able to fund this, so when that butter advert came along I was more than ecstatic.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for PiL, the band recently announced \u2018Alive\u2019 \u2013 a new live album with music taken from their stops on the \u2018This is Not The Last Tour\u2019<\/a>. The remainder of those tour dates took place at the end of 2025, and were an extension of the group\u2019s first leg<\/a>, which were announced at the end of 2024.<\/p>\n

Outside of his work with PiL, Lydon has been making headlines for his comments around his former Sex Pistols bandmates.<\/p>\n

Tensions between them have been high in recent years, with the singer being openly critical of their decision to take the band back on the road <\/a>and enlist former Gallows frontman Frank Carter in his place<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s almost malicious in its intent,\u201d he told NME last year<\/a>. \u201cAnd it\u2019s karaoke \u2013 that\u2019s all it will ever be. Bloody hell, The Three Stooges in that band have had how many years to write some new songs? That\u2019s what I\u2019d like to hear.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later comments also saw him add<\/a>: \u201cIt\u2019s weird. [It\u2019s] a dumbing down of all the integrity, intensity, genuine honesty and heartfelt emotions I put into that band.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Lydon has revealed that his recent appearance on The Masked Singer is helping fund the new Public…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,111,139,69,62122,437],"class_list":{"0":"post-232951","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-punk","13":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}