Wild Youth have addressed rumours they had a row with their Eurosong competitor John Lydon.
In January, the former Sex Pistols star, also known as Johnny Rotten, told RTÉ’s Drivetime that the Eurovision Song Contest was “phoney” and “disgusting”.
Wild Youth’s Conor O’Donohue later hit back at the Public Image Limited singer, stating that John shouldn’t have been in the running to represent Ireland in May if he feels that way about the annual contest.
Conor told The Irish Sun at the time: “If that’s how he feels about Eurovision, it would be wrong to let John Lydon go [to Liverpool], as opposed to someone who absolutely loves Eurovision.”
“Why would you enter Eurovision then slate the competition? No one is forcing you to do it.”
The Wild Youth star revealed he was “shocked” by Johnny’s comments, adding: “I think the question everybody is asking is, ‘If that’s how John feels, why does he want to go?’”
“I’m also sure fans of Eurovision are not overly thrilled by what John said because it’s the highlight of their year.”
John later hit back at Conor’s comments, telling the publication: “I don’t know anything about Wild Youth but it’s a bit of a brave name Wild Youth isn’t it? It hardly implies longevity?”
“Apologies to all if I made a flippant statement but hello young lads in Wild Youth. You will have bad moments too, and I meant no harm. I am under a lot of stress at the moment.”
“I do make the odd disrespectful remark because we all deserve them occasionally, but I am fully committed to this competition.”
Conor has since addressed rumours that Wild Youth had a “row” with John, saying he believes it was a product of “fictional writing”.
He told The Irish Mirror: “All that happened was Johnny Rotten said ‘I hate the Eurovision and I think the songs are terrible’ and I said well if he doesn’t like then why is he going for it because he’s just taking the place of someone of maybe who would like to take part of it.”
“Then Johnny Rotten said something about Wild Youth and that they obviously didn’t think of that name 20 years down the line. It was something really inoffensive and a slightly funny comment.”
“I was chatting to him afterwards. We had a whiskey together after it finished, and I congratulated him.”
“Whether you liked it or not, it was a very touching song that he sang about a very touching thing that he and his wife are going through,” Conor continued.
“He told me more about that and he said that all that matters for him was that he performs it on TV and his wife sees it.”
“I thought that was a really lovely thing. We had a cheers and he said congratulations to us and that was it, it was all good.”
Earlier this week John’s wife Nora sadly passed away aged 80 after a long battle with Alzheimer’s.
