The bizarre incident occurred at a hotel when Lydon heard the Heart of Gold hitmaker was in the building with his then-bandmates and decided to try to impress them with an acrobatic stunt.

However, the prank fell flat when Young failed to see the funny side - and Lydon is convinced the rocker remembered the moment when he later snubbed the former Sex Pistols frontman by refusing to appear on his cable show Rotten TV in 2000.

Lydon tells Uncut magazine, "It was a lot to do with a meeting years earlier in a hotel... Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young were having a meeting at the same hotel. They had a cake. I came down barefoot from my room, I had a suit jacket on with a tie but no shirt, and not a lot else. I jumped on his cake barefoot, and went, 'Hello!' But I meant it well. I thought they'd burst out laughing and go, this is our birthday gift, Johnny Rotten. Like exploding out of the cake? No, it doesn't work like that, rock people or not. They completely lack spontaneous humour."