Anger is an Energy: My Life Uncensored (61 page)

I learned not to be camera shy. It was so damn hot there, I said there was no way I could walk around wearing all that clothing. I wanted to jump in that bloody pond. I didn’t care what
was in it – crocodiles, swamp rats, anything, I needed to cool down. I knew cameras were on me, and of course you’re thinking, ‘Oh, my God, they’re going to laugh at my
waistline here, and my fried-egg breasts!’ You have to give that up and just be yourself. It’s a useful tool to learn: all those body-conscious perceptions are fake. Other
people don’t view us that way, if we’re happy. What you gather from the face is how you judge another person. If you can spot weakness in the face then everything crumbles
for that person. And it doesn’t matter what your body’s condition is. If you’re happy being yourself, that’s how you will be seen.

You can get realism, or you can go to the gymnasium like Peter Andre. But where does that get him? Unnecessary muscles in all the wrong places. I’ve always seen the laughability of that
side of how celebrities want to present themselves. I definitely do not want muscles attached to my person, because they
will
turn to fat. I’d rather my fat be seriously earned. I
binge-drink, and I love it. I also love the hangover because it reminds me not to do that again for a couple of months. Look, I’m Johnny, I ain’t no weightlifting gorilla.

Being comfortable in your own skin is the ultimate reward. I love that kind of person, and I love being in that kind of company, when people are the exact opposite of body-conscious, where all
the gifts of being alive are all coming from the brain – that’s, for me, a fantastic human at work. Crafting body definition – that’s so ridiculous. Unless you’re an
athlete by trade, what on earth do you want to do that for?

I got lumbered with the seriously ridiculous challenge of trying to grab ostrich eggs out of an ostrich pen. It seems absurd, but that’s actually rather a dangerous thing to do. These
birds are incredibly bird-brained, their head is so tiny, and those beautiful eyelashes on them. I’ve got to tell you too, their feathery backsides are just
so
comfortable, but then
you’ve got them bloody turkey legs of theirs. Wow, what a creature! However, they kick, they’ll tear you apart, and their beaks are like serrated carving knives. My back was covered in
bruises and cuts. The power of the ostrich.

There were problems raised about that after. The camp doctor said it was a dangerous thing they did there with me, because it was feeding time. When you picked up the fake halves of ostrich
eggs, underneath was the bird seed. They’re just thinking, ‘Why are you trying to steal our food?’

I obviously hoped, and indeed believed, that I was going to be voted out. Up until that point, there was no idea of audience feedback – you had no idea how you were
being perceived. When the viewers kept on voting me in, I called them ‘fucking cunts’ on live TV. This time, compared to Bill Grundy, there were very few complaints. I think the Great
British public actually understood, those were words of, ‘Oh no! More of
this
– thanks!’

I liked these people a lot and could not accept the loss of any one of them, but secretly what was really driving me crazy in there was that the producers wouldn’t tell me that Nora had
arrived safely in Australia. She flew in separately a few days after me – the twins were still in our care, and sometimes you can’t just ‘up bags and off’. Beforehand, the
TV company had promised they’d let me know she arrived safely, but they wouldn’t even give me a hint.

It began to really grate on my mind. I said, ‘Is everything all right?’ ‘We can’t respond to that.’ ‘Oh – now what’s that about?’ Just a
word of comfort would’ve been pleasant because I was well aware everybody else was getting little treats on the side.

Knowing about Nora’s welfare would’ve been a great treat to me. I kept going to a little hut you went to and talked into a screen. Sometimes they would respond through a speaker,
sometimes not. I just kept asking, ‘Why won’t you tell me? You know we almost died at Lockerbie, it’s really important that you let me know she arrived safely!’ It went on
for days and days.

That’s why I decided to walk when I did. They were just trying to turn me into that horrific personality that they so wanted out of me. ‘Well, no, go fuck yourselves, bye bye.
There’s nothing to win here.’ I never viewed it as a personal challenge to be the last one left. I was very sorry to see people go right from the start. I for one suggested that we did
not accept anyone to be removed from the camp. I continuously kept this thing running that I wanted to beat the system. What could they do if we refused to leave? They couldn’t starve us
– we were starving already. One for all and all for one . . . but that’s not the way celebrities work. Is life a party or a parting of our ways?

So I told them, ‘I’m out . . . now!’ and down came an escort or two, and led me up to another camp at the top. Nora, of course, was fine. The following
day they took me back to the camp to be interviewed. The presenters, Ant and Dec, were going, ‘Oooooh, why did you leave, Johnny? You should’ve stayed, you could’ve won it!’
They really are sweet-natured fellas.

And then up came a TV screen, a pre-recorded video with my dad on it asking me why I left. I thought ‘Bloody hell, Dad, do you really need to know?’ Bloody obvious. I spoke to him
much later and found out the reason he’d been so upset: ‘Whoi did yer leave, Johnny? Oi had money bettin’ on yer!’

Of course, Rambo was disappointed that I’d walked, and Nora too, although she knew I’d be heartbroken not knowing she was safe. It turned out to be a great thing to have done,
because I learned a lot about myself. I’m a survivor.

Whatever waist size I went in at, I came out a damn sight thinner. Did the pounds shed off me! It really thinned me down, in such a short time. I’d reached that thin-enough waist to wear
designer clothing, and I hadn’t had that since I was eighteen. I thought, ‘Wow, I’ve got to stay this size forever!’ Of course, I didn’t. The first thing you do when
you get out is stuff your face.

I’m a Celebrity
itself was positive, it was just the surrounding media nonsense I had a problem with. One of those British papers had followed Nora around before she left LA for
Australia. We’d moved the twins into an apartment of their own at that time, and one time when Nora went over to see them some journalist had followed her there and wrote an article saying
she was meeting her young black lover. ‘Hey, that’s my grandson!’ So that was the nonsense I had to deal with when I emerged.

I know that going into TV World, you’re somewhat asking for it, and let’s get real – Johnny Rotten is going to get it,
dans le chuff
, seven ways to Sunday, from these
rags. They will always be looking for the nasty in me and that’s just the way it’s always going to be. But when it gets into my family and my friends and
my
personal life, that’s then a wicked line that I think they have no right to cross. I don’t view myself as innocent as far as a target for the press goes, because I’ve more than
asked for it, haven’t I? I don’t mind my own head on the chopping block, just don’t execute my family. Can you imagine what Pedro and Nora made of that, when they had to read that
shit.

I don’t think the public take too much of it too seriously, really. But there is the one so-called friend who’ll ring up and go, ‘Oh that’s terrible, Nora’s got a
black lover,’ stirring it up. The problem is you don’t have any real comeback or revenge (there’s a word!) on these journalists. Ultimately, their driving force is jealousy
– very evil. That whole thing of spying on people – that to me is unforgivable. To just try and trivialize and squander away another human being’s life because you resent their
popularity – it’s very suspect. The lesson you learn is, if you keep away and you’re shy and you don’t get involved in that world, and you don’t invite it by doing
Hello!
magazine covers, the badness of it wears off.

I don’t read my own press, and I haven’t been able to look at any of the footage from
I’m a Celebrity
either. When I got back to the hotel they had a showreel waiting
for me. ‘No, John, you did good, you must look at this.’ ‘No! I don’t look at myself, I
am
myself, and quite frankly I’ve had enough of me. I’ve got a
whole lot more of a life to live, and I’m not going to get bogged down in admiring myself on camera.’

I can’t see any positives in keeping abreast of that stuff. It’ll make you conceited and contrived, for one thing. Or it can really upset you and bring you down. There’s enough
going on in the real world to contend with, without that vacuous condition occupying a large part of your resources.

In the light of what’s been revealed in the Leveson Inquiry into press misbehaviour in Britain, I know damn well that my phone was tapped during this period. Everybody was tapped. If you
are going to tap my phone all day long, you aren’t going to get any dirt. I don’t even use it as a chat line. I don’t like the phone. I like one-on-ones.
We don’t do dirty dealings; there’s no subterfuge in how we operate. So, fine – come one, come all! I should publicly broadcast our business line. You’ll be
bored by the purity of it all. The best they could hope for is a discussion on the room allocation for our Eastern European tour. Imagine them sniffling into that.

One thing I learned long ago about touring arrangements is to always have Rambo with me, and in hotels for us to have interconnecting rooms. We’d learned about all that sex-scandal
nonsense in hotel rooms. As a result, I
never
answer the door, because that’s how they catch you, and try and pin something on you. As a byproduct, I can’t order room service
because John’ll be aware of it, so that keeps me thin. Everything is for a point and a purpose.

There was one hotel, probably in Hungary, where we drove up and the driver said, ‘Uh-oh, that’s the press waiting to catch someone.’ Outside, there was a girl in a mac, and it
was obvious, even looking out through dark windows, that she had nothing on underneath. There was a cameraman next to her, so she was going to run over, and it would be a sex scandal shot.
That’s the kind of stuff that you can’t have happening. So much of it is fake. There are certain hotels in London where you know damn well that’s the kind of thing that may
happen. We used to book in this one place all the time. It must’ve driven them mad. No joy from us.

Whatever you do in life, you know somebody is paying attention. So pay attention, because you’re being paid attention to. A lot of them alleged celebrities involved in the
scandal-mongering were probably quite thrilled. They’re really looking to profiteer from that angle, because it guarantees a media profile.

Sometime after I came out of the jungle I had a meeting in London, where the producers of
I’m a Celebrity
said, ‘Everybody’s got a TV show from it – what can we do
for you, John?’ My reply was, ‘Oh no . . . please, nothing!’ Their suggestion was along the lines of that I do one of those question-and-answer sessions, where a big celebrity
stands up there and you discuss your life, and a celebrity audience fires questions at you. They wanted me to do
An
Audience With Johnny Rotten
. So what did they
think the content would be? ‘Well, if you can focus it on
I’m a Celebrity
. . .’ ‘Goodbye!’ It was the most disjointed evening dinner I think I’ve ever
attended. I brought Nora and Rambo, and we just sat there and listened to this uncaring, unsympathetic, pointless vision of what they think I do. I don’t run with the rest of that crowd, and
I don’t want to be perceived as needing celebrity more than reality, because, indeed, I don’t.

Doing the show also gave me the opportunity to raise money for charity, and what a mad one we picked. Me and Rambo had both watched this nature documentary about a chimp sanctuary in Sierra
Leone. In the show they followed this little albino chimp that had been rescued from the wild – it’s tough for albinos out there, apparently – but at the end of the show the poor
thing died. It broke our hearts so we signed up for money to go to the sanctuary to make sure the other chimps were looked after.

There was no great trading of phone numbers between us contestants. I’ve thought about it over the years, maybe I should try and ring up for a laugh – ‘Oh, wasn’t that a
giggle!’ – but then I’m thinking, ‘No, it really wasn’t!’ Beyond two minutes, you’ve got another half hour on the phone going, ‘Pfff, you know,
you’re not really important!’ And I mean that from both sides, we’re not important to each other, so why try and make it something it isn’t?

A few months after my appearance on this ratings-topping TV programme, an alleged half-sister of mine crept out of the woodwork. Was the timing a coincidence? I think not
– it was glaringly obvious. Her story was that my mother had had her out of wedlock and sent her off for adoption, before my mum and dad got married.

From the off, she was too pushy. She approached my dad first, which I found odd, then she barged into my Uncle Jim’s funeral in Ireland. I couldn’t attend that one myself because I
was on tour, but apparently she got involved with my Auntie Pauline there. So she’d approached Dad and Auntie Pauline, but neither of them chose to
pass the info on to
me. I only got wind of it when it hit the newspapers – she went to the media with her ‘story’ before I’d even had a chance to talk to her, which really didn’t feel
right to me at all.

When you try to do this stuff through TV networks and the press, really, how can it be anything else but a money hunt? You know, at the very least, ‘Why don’t you just hang back, and
stop trying to push your way into our family?’

Around that period,
The Richard and Judy Show
approached us. I had been on the show a few months previous promoting something or other – I actually appeared on that show a couple of
times – me and Rambo always got on really well with Richard and Judy, and the producers had been very friendly with us too, but this time they said, ‘We hate to say this to you, but we
talked to this woman yesterday, blah, blah, blah . . .’ So they wanted me to respond to this on TV, a situation I thought she should never have gone to TV about, because if I wasn’t
Johnny Bloody Rotten, it wouldn’t be in the TV framework – so obviously your angle is a little crooked here,
babby
. And she’d made no approach to my other three brothers,
by the way. She don’t want to know about them, because they ain’t got cash in the bank. I felt like, ‘Is this someone else claiming an inheritance from me if I kick the bucket?
Sorry, love, I didn’t grow up with you, I don’t know you, I don’t care. My family is my family, and my money stays with us.’