Origin of Johnny Rotten Stage Name
The origin of John Lydon's stage name, Johnny Rotten, has had two longstanding explanations. One, given in a Daily Telegraph feature interview with Lydon in 2007, was that he was given the name in the mid 1970s, when his lack of oral hygiene led to his teeth turning green. Another story says the name was given to him by Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones, who saw Lydon's teeth and exclaimed, "You're rotten, you are!"
In 2008 Lydon had extensive dental work performed in Los Angeles, at a reported cost of US $22,000. Lydon explained that it wasn't done out of vanity: "It was necessity ... all those rotten teeth were seriously beginning to corrupt my system".
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