Moz & Marr Turn Down $75,000,000 for Smiths Reunion

The latest from the Morrissey camp: A press release released just today announces Moz's final 30 stops on his latest successful tour promoting his number one UK album, Ringleader of the Tormentors—playing 168 shows in just over 21 months come November. These shows will be the last Morrissey will do "for the foreseeable future."

But that wasn't really the interesting part of the release. This was:

Finally, in an effort to stop the speculation and kill off the rumor mongers who seem to use these things to take advantage of committed fans, we can tell you that one thing the future will not bring is a Smiths' reunion tour. Per recent reports Morrissey was approached during the course of the summer by a consortium of promoters, in the wake of the success of the Police, U2 and the Rolling Stones tours, with a $75,000,000 offer to tour in 2008 and or 2009. The offer called for Morrissey to do a minimum of 50 shows all over the world under the Smiths' name with the only proviso being that Johnny Marr was also in the band. The offer has been refused.

The final block of west coast U.S. tour dates include a 10-night engagement at the Hollywood Palladium, from 10/1-10/13 (excluding Sundays).