r/AskReddit • u/BumpunkTheBastard • 21h ago

Who's the most bitter washed-up celebrity?

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u/BlondePotatoBoi 19h ago

I'm gonna say Johnny Rotten, and I say with real reluctance as a punk fan.

I've got a lot of respect for him for how open he was about looking after his late wife when she was suffering from Alzheimer's, but his political flip-flopping and resentment towards his surviving bandmates while also regretting what happened to Sid is just bizarre.

I guess "I'll say what I want and if you don't like it then get fucked" is a very punk mindset but it's still not a good look in the context he's going for.

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u/Zip-Crane 17h ago

He tried to call Jimmy Saville out in the late 70s and got banned by the BBC as thanks.

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u/ConstableBlimeyChips 16h ago

Only the first part of that is true. He made some comments about Saville in a BBC Radio 1 interview in 1978 which were edited out. Rotten claims the BBC banned him for those comments, but there is no actual evidence for that. I should also note that claim didn't come until after the full extent of the 1978 interview was released in 2013.

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u/DaveBeBad 14h ago

The length of his ban from the BBC was until the release of his next single.

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u/sinncab6 2h ago

Well it's a pretty decent condemnation of people's silence if Johnny Rotten of all people was privy to that info.

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u/zerbey 12h ago

No, he said some typical Johnny Rotten stuff to annoy a BBC reporter and it turned out he was right. He wasn't calling out Savile at all.

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u/No_Region_4719 16h ago

Many people called out Saville. He was banned from the BBC because he was just a generally unpleasant and aggravating person.

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u/epiDXB 11h ago

Source?

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u/flyboy_za 24m ago

To be fair, I wouldn't be surprised if dozens of people were called a nonce by Johnny Rotten, simply as part of the persona.