Punk rock icon and Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon a.k.a. 'Johnny Rotten' was revealed as the Jester Wednesday on the latest edition of The Masked Singer.
Lydon was eliminated following a performance of Soggy Bottom Boys' "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow." He'd previously wowed the judges with a rendition of Alice Cooper's "School's Out."
Viewers had no doubt the Jester was a rocker, speculating that it might be The Who's Roger Daltrey, Twisted Sister's Dee Snider, Def Leppard's Joe Elliott, Van Halen's Sammy Hagar or even The Godfather of Shock Rock — Cooper himself.
Lydon — as the face of punk rock's late-'70s assault on establishment politics and entertainment — is perhaps the last person anyone would expect to show up on a big network television singing competition show in America. But apparently The Masked Singer seemed like fun, and Lydon decided to just roll with it.
"We've only got one life, and you must explore all the possibilities and be limited by no one for no reason," he said, when asked why he decided to participate.
Speaking later to Billboard, Lydon explained that he ultimately decided to go through with the show for his wife Nora, who is suffering from Alzheimer's.
Lydon said his wife "might get a great sense of fun out of it if she managed to guess who it was. We've lived together for 47 years, Nora and I, so she must have some clues as to who I am and what I can get up to."
Lydon was in the news all summer as he fought his Sex Pistols bandmates in court over their plan to make a Sex Pistols biopic miniseries with Danny Boyle for FX. Lydon ultimately lost the effort to block the use of Sex Pistols music in the show.
Photo: FOX Television