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Artist News
John Lydon claims Mick Jagger provided legal support to Sid Vicious after Nancy Spungen death
By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 11 November 2013
In an interesting interview with Scottish newspaper Daily Record, Johnny Lydon has claimed that Mick Jagger funded legal representation for Sid Vicious after the Sex Pistols bassist was charged with murder following the death of his girlfriend Nancy Spungen in October 1978.
Recalling the legendary Sid and Nancy relationship, Lydon tells the Record: “Nancy Spungen was a hideous, awful person who killed herself because of the lifestyle and led to the destruction and subsequent death of Sid and the whole fiasco. I tried to help Sid through all of that and feel a certain responsibility because I brought him into the Pistols thinking he could handle the pressure. He couldn’t. The reason people take heroin is because they can’t handle pressure. Poor old Sid”.
Expanding on Spungen’s death by stabbing in 1978, and Vicious’s death from an overdose four months later, Lydon goes on: “[Spungen’s] death is all entangled in mystery. It’s no real mystery, though. If you are going to get yourself involved in drugs and narcotics in that way accidents are going to happen. Sid was a lost case. He was wrapped firmly in Malcolm’s shenanigans. It became ludicrous trying to talk to him through the drug haze because all you would hear was, ‘I’m the real star around here’. Great. Carry on. We all know how that’s going to end”.
On Jagger’s role in providing legal support for an accused Vicious, Lydon continues: “The only good news is that I heard Mick Jagger got in there and brought lawyers into it on Sid’s behalf because I don’t think Malcolm lifted a finger. He just didn’t know what to do. For that, I have a good liking of Mick Jagger. There was activity behind the scenes from Mick Jagger so I applaud him. [And] he never used it to advance himself publicity-wise”.
Read the whole interview here.
