Steve Jones' relationship with Chrissie Hynde was "showbizzed up" for 'Pistol'.
Steve Jones' memoir inspired Pistol
The former Sex Pistols rocker admitted the portrayal of his romance with the Pretenders singer - before she found fame - as being instrumental to the success of the punk band in the new Disney+ series didn't quite reflect reality and the 'Brass in Pocket' hitmaker was "shocked" when she first tuned in to the programme.
He said: “You’ve got to showbiz it up a little bit, you’ve got to make it interesting."
Speaking specifically about his and Chrissie's brief romance and how she had been made the "love interest", he added to the New York Times newspaper: “She watched it the other day and she was surprised. She said, ‘I didn’t realise I was about this much’.”
The opening episode of the series depicted Steve, now 66, and Chrissie, getting intimate in the changing rooms at Sex, the clothes shop where the 70-year-old singer worked, while her then-boyfriend Nick Kent waited outside.
However, the music journalist dismissed the scene as made-up and admitted he was shocked by how events were portrayed in the show.
He told the Sunday Times newspaper: “I definitely dispute that. I know Chrissie was always faithful to me. It was me who was unfaithful to her — that was when and why our relationship broke up, and it hurt us both gravely.
“Chrissie and I had a relationship, we lived together for a year while she was working in the shop, then we broke up in acrimonious circumstances. She moved to Paris for a while, then went back to Cleveland. I was never aware there was a big affair going on between the two of them.
“Of course, everyone has their own version, and the Sex Pistols is a story that lends itself to sensationalising so easily.”
The six-part series is based on Steve's memoir, 'Lonely Boy: Tales From a Sex Pistol', but the guitarist was keen to stress it is "not a documentary".
And Nick believes that is the problem at the heart of the show.
He said: “It came from Steve Jones’s book. He could neither read nor write when I knew him. The irony is painfully apparent.”
The 70-year-old writer admitted he hasn't actually seen the show.
He said: “I haven’t made my mind up yet, but my wife is keen to see it. It’s lovely to hear how I’ve been portrayed by someone who wasn’t in the room when the real stuff went down.
“You want to know the truth? Everybody got f***** in the Sex Pistols, this is just the latest version of that.”
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