John Lydon gives Australian TV reporter a Rotten ride

Take, for example, the above interview that went wrong on The Project, a program that airs on Australian television. Lydon appeared on the show earlier this week to promote a down under gig by PiL, the post-Sex Pistols project that he’s currently out on tour with.

The segment starts off all warm and fuzzy, with a lead-in video portion outlining the importance of the Sex Pistols, and making it clear that the band literally changed the course of rock ’n’ roll. The final words of that lead-in are, “And now he’s bringing his other group to the country, as loud, proud, and rude as ever.”

From there a by-remote interview has the famously cranky singer tag-teamed by two reporters, one of them a woman, Carrie Bickmore. By the time things have concluded, Lydon has told her to “shut up”, suggested that “When a man is talking, do not interrupt”, and informed her that “You sound like one of them dreadful loud birds I don’t like.”

For some reason, this not only shocks but offends everyone on The Project team, who, once Lydon is safely out of transmission range, sit there sputtering that he’s a sexist, misogynist pig.

Christ people, who the hell do you think you were dealing with? Just because the man is flouncing around England these days doing commercials for Country Life Butter doesn’t mean Johnny Rotten is dead.