The Wife of singer John Lydon, Nora Forster, has passed away five years after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. 44 years passed between the former Sex Pistols frontman and the German publishing heiress. She was 80 years old.
In recent years, he has spoken eloquently about becoming Forster’s devoted caregiver as her illness progressed.
He also penned a composition for her that he attempted to submit to this year’s Eurovision Composition Contest on behalf of Ireland, but it was ultimately rejected.
In 1975, Lydon met Nora Forster at Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren’s London punk emporium Sex, shortly before the punk movement gained national prominence.
She was 14 years his senior and descended from an affluent newspaper family, but she had been working as a music promoter in Germany and then London.
Her daughter Ariane from her first marriage to vocalist Frank Forster became known as Ari Up, the lead singer for the punk band The Slits.
After her death in 2010 at the age of 48 from breast cancer, Forster and Lydon became the legal custodians of her three children.
Lydon stated that he believed Forster exhibited the earliest symptoms of Alzheimer’s thereafter. In 2021, he told The Times,
“A mother’s loss of a daughter is a pain that cannot be described.”
“From that point on, the problems were minor, such as losing keys frequently, but they accumulated over time. It occurred so incrementally, so slowly, that by the time a conclusion can be reached, it is impossible to trace its origins.
In 2018, she received an official diagnosis, and he became her full-time caregiver as her condition deteriorated.
“No happiness is without sorrow”
Eventually, she had difficulty recognizing her spouse. After appearing on the American version of The Masked Singer in 2021, Lydon told The Guardian, “I wanted to see if she could predict, and she did.
She exclaimed,
“Johnny, it’s you!” It was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life to hear her speak in such a manner and prevent her from shutting off.
As a result, he composed what he termed a “serious, personal, yet universal love song” about a vacation they had taken to Hawaii, as it was one of her most vivid memories.
He sang in the chorus,
“Remember me, I remember you.”
Lydon’s parents are Irish, so he submitted the song with Public Image Ltd as Ireland’s entry for this year’s Eurovision Song Contest.
“It is dedicated to everyone going through difficult times on life’s journey with their closest loved one,” he said when it was announced. It is also a message of hope that love inevitably triumphs over all.
Lydon told the Sunday Times earlier this year that caring for his wife had profoundly altered him and that he did not know how he would survive without her.
“It’s disgusting. “It is so pernicious and vile to watch a loved one slowly fade away,” he said.
He stated that their existence together had been “worth every moment.”
“No happiness comes without sorrow, and boy, do I know that now.”
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