John Lydon has revealed that his recent appearance on The Masked Singer is helping fund the new Public Image Ltd album.
The punk icon and former Sex Pistol frontman was unveiled as being part of the ITV singing contest on January 10. He was booted out of the competition after delivering renditions of Olivia Newton-John’s ‘Physical’ and Tom Jones’s ‘Sex Bomb’ while wearing a Yak costume.
In his exit interview, he playfully joked that the show was “hardly” a career highlight, but took part as he “hope[d] the fun comes across”.
Following his eviction from the show – after losing a sing-off to a person going under the alias ‘Monkey Business’ – Lydon looked back at his time on the show during an interview with This Morning, and revealed why he said yes to the series.
“Fun, firstly. Mostly, accurately, the money,” he said, adding that the fee he was paid has gone towards funding the upcoming album from PiL.
“The money has now gone and paid for us to go and record in Portugal for a solid month. And, a little holiday afterwards,” he added, before revealing that none of his bandmates worked out that he was on the show.
“They were wondering where I got the money from the studio”, before saying that “they never put the two together”.
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’t motivated by money, but instead did it as a lighthearted gesture for his wife, Nora Foster.
The punk icon lost his wife of nearly five decades in April 2023 after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease, and the final two years of her life saw him serve as her full-time carer.
“That was before the death of my lovely wife, so I did it for completely different reasons,” he said. “I wanted her to enjoy that and see if she could guess if it was me before she died. And she totally went, ‘It’s you’. Alzheimer’s or not, ‘That’s you.’”
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.
“I need to get out of the house,” he said. “I’ve done enough wallowing, which of course you can’t avoid, even if you think, ‘No, be the bigger man’. You cannot stop it. You cannot stop the sadness when it comes on, but enough already.”
The interview also saw him reveal that the band were going back-to-basics for their 12th album.
“It’s not going to be a dismal record. We’re going to take it back to the roots of a proper rock band, tearing the fucking building down. It’s going to be full on,” he said, adding that he was wanting to recapture some “raw anger and energy”.
“We all need that. And that will help me mentally no end. It’s like shout therapy,” he continued.
The Masked Singer appearance isn’t 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’t Believe It’s Not Butter. He then appeared alongside Katie Price and Peter Andre on ITV’s I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here!
In 2010, he told NME that the money was helping PiL reform, sharing: “I’m permanently out of pocket, but I’ve got news for you, from the first day I started PiL I was out of pocket.
“For me it’s an ongoing process. For 18 years I haven’t been able to fund this, so when that butter advert came along I was more than ecstatic.”
As for PiL, the band recently announced ‘Alive’ – a new live album with music taken from their stops on the ‘This is Not The Last Tour’. The remainder of those tour dates took place at the end of 2025, and were an extension of the group’s first leg, which were announced at the end of 2024.
Outside of his work with PiL, Lydon has been making headlines for his comments around his former Sex Pistols bandmates.
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 and enlist former Gallows frontman Frank Carter in his place.
“It’s almost malicious in its intent,” he told NME last year. “And it’s karaoke – that’s all it will ever be. Bloody hell, The Three Stooges in that band have had how many years to write some new songs? That’s what I’d like to hear.”
Later comments also saw him add: “It’s weird. [It’s] a dumbing down of all the integrity, intensity, genuine honesty and heartfelt emotions I put into that band.”