McLaren's parents divorced when he was two after Peter McLaren left the family home due to his wife's serial infidelity: McLaren later alleged that her lovers included the Selfridges magnate Sir Charles Clore and Sir Isaac Wolfson, owner of Universal Stores. McLaren was born on 22 January 1946 in a flat at 47 Carysfort Road, Stoke Newington, north-east London, to Peter McLaren, a Londoner of Scottish extraction who was at that time serving with the Royal Engineers, and Emily Isaacs, the daughter of tailor Mick Isaacs and independently wealthy Rose Corré Isaacs, whose father had been a Portuguese Sephardic Jewish diamond dealer. In his later years, he lived in Paris and New York City, and died of peritoneal mesothelioma in a Swiss hospital. His first album, Duck Rock, was certified silver in the UK and spawned the top-ten singles ' Buffalo Gals' and ' Double Dutch'. When accused of turning popular culture into a cheap marketing gimmick, he joked that he hoped it was true. In the 1980s, McLaren continued managing other London acts and performed as a solo artist, initially focusing on hip hop and world music and later diversifying into funk, disco, and electronic dance music.

The issue of a controversial record, ' God Save the Queen', satirising the Queen's Jubilee in 1977, was typical of McLaren's shock tactics, and he gained publicity by being arrested after a promotional boat trip outside the Houses of Parliament. After a period advising the New York Dolls in the United States, McLaren managed the Sex Pistols, for which he recruited frontman Johnny Rotten. From 1974 to 1976 he operated the Chelsea boutique Sex with his girlfriend Vivienne Westwood, which helped shape early punk fashion and became an early hub for the subculture in London. He attended a number of British art colleges in the 1960s, where he became involved in underground art and left-wing activism.

McLaren was brought up by his grandmother after his father, Peter, left the family home.

He was promoter and manager for punk rock and new wave bands such as New York Dolls, Sex Pistols, Adam and the Ants, and Bow Wow Wow, and as an early commercial architect of the punk subculture. Malcolm Robert Andrew McLaren (22 January 1946 – 8 April 2010) was an English impresario, visual artist, musician, and fashion designer.

Space Punks instal the new for mac