John & Nora (Photo @ Andy Cantillon / JRJL Productions 2010)
LOS ANGELES (CelebrityAccess) — Nora Forster, wife of the punk rock icon Johnny Lydon for almost 50 years, has died after a battle with Alzheimer’s disease. She was 80.
Her passing was announced via Lydon’s social media: ‘It is with a heavy heart that we share the sad news that Nora Forster – John Lydon’s wife of nearly 5 decades – has passed away. Nora had been living with Alzheimer’s for several years. In which time John had become her full-time carer’.
‘Please respect John’s grief and allow him space. Rest in Peace Nora. Heart felt condolences to John from Rambo and all at PiL Official,’ the statement continued.
Lydon, who is known professionally as the Sex Pistol’s Johnny Rotten, lived near with Forster near Los Angeles and became her primary caregiver in recent years as she contended with the impacts of Alzheimer’s disease.
Forster, a publishing heiress from Germany who was 14 years older than Lydon, married him in the late 1970s and he became stepfather to Forster’s daughter Ari Up, and eventually legal guardian to Ari’s children.
Lydon revealed Forster’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis in 2018 and in 2020 disclosed that he had become a full-time caregiver as her condition worsened.
“I am her full-time carer and I won’t let anyone mess up with her. For me, the real person is still there. That person I love is still there every minute of every day and that is my life. It’s unfortunate that she forgets things, well, don’t we all? I suppose her condition is one of like a permanent hangover for her. It gets worse and worse, bits of the brain store less and less memory and then suddenly some bits completely vanish,” he told Yahoo! in 2020.
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