John Lydon threatens to take newspapers to court

Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon appeared on UK television last night (July 28) to strongly deny recent newspaper reports calling him racist.

The star, appearing on BBC1's 'The One Show', also said he would take legal action against any publications that said otherwise, following his recent backstage spat at Spanish festival Summercase.

Referring to various articles that appeared in British newspapers over the weekend, Lydon said: "There's been a hell of a lot of 'freedom of the press', shall we say, where they’ve run wild, absolutely atrocious, really hurtful stories."

"My grandchildren are Jamaican," he added. "It's an absolute offence to them and me when I read stories like that, that are allowed to go to print absolutely unfounded."

He explained: "And [the newspapers] have the liberty to take liberties with a man like me and call me racist when my entire life has proved exactly the opposite."

Presenter Adrian Chiles then asked: "So you're not a racist then?" to which Lydon replied: "Absolutely not. And any bugger that says so is gonna have their day in court with me."