Morrissey has claimed he accepted a “lucrative offer” this summer for a Smiths reunion – but Johnny Marr ignored it.
Social media has been buzzing this week since Noel and Liam Gallagher announced they were getting back together for Oasis concerts in 2025.
If two brothers who despise each other with such vitriolic passion can get back together for the good of music, asked fans, why can’t Morrissey and Marr?
On Thursday Morrissey, 65, posted a statement on his website saying: “In June 2024 AEG Entertainment Group made a lucrative offer to both Morrissey and Marr to tour worldwide as ‘The Smiths’ throughout 2025. Morrissey said yes to the offer; Marr ignored the offer.”
The statement added: “Morrissey undertakes a largely sold out tour of the USA in November. Marr continues to tour as a special guest to New Order.”
Marr, 60, has not yet responded, but earlier this week when a Smiths fan posted on X: “If Oasis can do it, The Smiths can too (I’m delusional)”, the guitarist replied with a photograph of the grinning Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, pint in hand.
The Smiths, who formed in Manchester in 1982, are regarded by many as the greatest band of their generation with Morrissey the best lyricist and Marr the top guitarist. Marr left the band in 1987 and he and Morrissey have since achieved successful careers.
Morrissey has long lost his “criminally vulgar” shyness, stretching and often breaking the patience of fans with controversial pronouncements on politics, including once expressing support for the far right For Britain party.
He has also said Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, “cannot talk properly”; that “even Tesco wouldn’t employ [the Labour MP] Diane Abbott”; that halal meat is “evil”; and “the modern loony left seem to forget that Hitler was leftwing”.
In an interview two years ago, Marr revealed it had been “18 or maybe 15 years” since he last spoke to Morrissey in person. He also said there was “zero chance” of them getting back together.
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That also used to be the stance of Morrissey until, it seems, this summer.
On the reunion question, his previous position was: “I would rather eat my own testicles than reform the Smiths, and that’s saying something for a vegetarian.”