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Anonymous
Guest
What truth is that?
I'm not begrudging Johnny's success - like I said, he didn't choose the timing or circumstances. He's a great guitar player and if there were even an ounce of goodwill between him and Moz, I think most Smiths fans would be on cloud 9 - we can and go and see them both tour, buy two sets of albums, there wouldn't be any of this 'team' nonsense.
It's not like that though. Johnny has benefited from Moz being enormously 'out of favour', and he has undoubtedly added fuel to that fire by stoking up the Twitter mob. Fans all over social media were routinely saying things like, "Thank God one of The Smiths isn't a bellend", "#TeamMarr" (and much worse) - and not once did he ever step in to say "Hang on guys, that's not what The Smiths were about, we were a partnership." He just soaked up the attention, changed his profile pic to one from the Simpsons sketch, let his stupid son pour petrol on the situation... he absolutely joined in. Even when Moz was riding high in the media (with Quarry for example) - he wasn't sitting there smirking at the failure of Boomslang, he was still praising Johnny.
Yes, of course Johnny has benefitted from Morrissey being out of favor. But really, whose fault is that? It's not Johnny's fault that Morrissey is dismantling any goodwill he's earned through the Smiths and his early solo career. If you've read Johnny's book or listened to any of his older podcasts, he always gave full credit to Morrissey and talked in glowing terms about the Smiths. But you know how Twitter and social media is, it's fueled by drama and controversy. That's not what gets the headlines or re-tweets. Morrissey's the one that attacked Johnny with that ill-conceived open letter which was frankly embarrassing and untrue. Of course Johnny's going to respond to that. Why wouldn't he, that was a very personal attack. It just completely laid bare to the world that their relationship was irrevocably broken.