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Anton Corbijn<\/p>\n\u201cW. B. Yeats was buried just down the road,\u201d says Bono near the end of our first afternoon together, name-checking the famed Irish poet. It\u2019s early April and the U2 singer is walking me up the driveway of his vacation estate in the South of France, toward my waiting car. Behind us, the Mediterranean Sea fills the horizon, blue as far as the eye can see. His property stretches before us. A few houses. Couple of pools. It\u2019s blissfully private, even if the glitz of Monaco and Cannes isn\u2019t too far away. Bono is not the first Irishman to trade the dampness of his home country for the sunny shores of the C\u00f4te d\u2019Azur\u2014but he might be doing it better than the rest. <\/p>\n
Bono shares the property with his bandmate the Edge. In the early nineties, they were driving by while on vacation with the other two members of the band when they noticed the grounds and stopped to take a look. Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton, the drummer and bassist who complete the legendary U2 lineup, wouldn\u2019t even get out of the car. Owning such a place would be too much work, they said, way too much upkeep. But the frontman and guitarist couldn\u2019t resist splurging. U2 was fresh off a ten-year stretch that saw the group go from buzzy new post-punk experiment to stadium-sized rock act, selling more than 70 million albums along the way. Which is to say, they could afford it. <\/p>\n
Anton Corbijn<\/p>\n
Jacket and trousers by Umit Benan; T-shirt by Dries Van Noten; sandals by Toga Virilis; sunglasses and jewelry, Bono\u2019s own.<\/p>\n
It has indeed required a lot of work. Buildings have been added to accommodate their growing families over the years. On this day, one of the structures is wrapped in scaffolding and one of the pools has been drained. It\u2019s part of the work to get ready for summer. But the idyllic hideaway has given more to Bono and his band than it has taken.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis place saved our musical lives,\u201d says Bono a few days later, sitting in one of the living rooms. The space around us is stunning but informal. Two big gray couches, a wall of windows to stare at the sea. A piano in the corner and a giant fireplace behind us. As comfortable as he is here, after all these years he hasn\u2019t adjusted his wardrobe to the setting. While his neighbors are walking around in linen skirts and pastel vacation wear, he\u2019s dressed like a rock star from Dublin in black jeans, a black V-neck T-shirt, and an army-green chore coat. <\/p>\n
The decade that led up to buying the summer home had been thrilling, and exhausting. \u201cYou\u2019re pushing a rock up a hill,\u201d Bono says of what it takes to become the biggest band in the world. It had gotten to them all. U2 had grown into Serious Musical Artists. They hadn\u2019t yet learned how to enjoy it. \u201cWe were slow to the groove,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
And maybe it did save the music. Great albums certainly followed: 2000\u2019s All That You Can\u2019t Leave Behind, 2004\u2019s How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. (We\u2019ll leave the evaluation of 1997\u2019s Pop, one of the more divisive releases in the group\u2019s catalog, to each reader. This listener likes it.) But speak to Bono long enough and it\u2019s clear that he found something else in the South of France. \u201cIt\u2019s the antidote to one of my personalities,\u201d he explains. The one that has chased the biggest music venues in the world, the trophies at every awards show, and new frontiers of music and visual expression for more than four decades. The one that has cofounded mission-oriented organizations like ONE, to combat poverty in Africa; and (RED), to fight AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis; and DATA, which advocated for debt relief throughout Africa. The one that spearheaded campaigns for AIDS relief (PEPFAR). <\/p>\n
This article appeared in the Summer 2025 issue of Esquire<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wouldn\u2019t be fair to say we could live an anonymous life here,\u201d Bono says, \u201cbut the French are so respectful. You could almost forget that you weren\u2019t anonymous.\u201d<\/p>\n
After thirteen years with a white-knuckle death grip on the steering wheel of their career, Bono finally learned how to take a breath. He embraced long lunches and late nights. Quality time with his wife and kids. And some partying too. \u201cHouse parties, dance parties, our mates,\u201d as he recalls of the early days\u2019 scene. Bono flourished, finding lightness in himself for the first time in a long time. Maybe even ever. <\/p>\n
Looking back, he might\u2019ve gone too big. \u201cI was going through the pure joy of having adolescence the wrong way around\u2014having it in my thirties instead of my teens,\u201d he recalls. \u201cThere was a moment where I had to ask myself, \u2018Where is this self-love and where\u2019s this self-indulgence?\u2019\u2009\u201d But he\u2019s grateful all the same. <\/p>\n
The families still come when they can, though mainly in the summer. School, work, their own careers\u2014everyone\u2019s busy. Bono likes when they\u2019re all here. Rooms overflowing. \u201cIf you have a place like this, lots of people should use it,\u201d he says simply. Bono and his wife, Ali, have four children, stretching between ages thirty-five and twenty-three. The Edge has five; some of them have started adding grandchildren to the pile. What do the Edge\u2019s grandkids call you? I ask. Bono seems surprised by the query. \u201cBono,\u201d he says after a pause. He knows it might sound silly. \u201cYou have to remember,\u201d he adds, \u201cEdge\u2019s mother used to call him Edge.\u201d <\/p>\n
Mainly, he spends a lot of time here alone. \u201cWorking like a dog, living like a shih tzu,\u201d he quips. <\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
This week is no different, though he\u2019s welcomed me into his home to discuss his excellent new film, Bono: Stories of Surrender<\/a>. Shot during his one-man stage show that ran between late 2022 and early 2023, it is a striking, highly vulnerable adaptation of his memoir, which was also released in 2022. The work premiered at Cannes Film Festival before its May 30 arrival on Apple TV+<\/a> and Vision Pro<\/a>. Cynics might view the project as another nostalgia-driven cash grab by an aging rock star. But that would be a fundamental misreading of the man and where he is in his life.<\/p>\n The last several years have been a time of recovery and reckoning for Bono, who turned sixty-five this spring. He made it past a serious health scare (one that he\u2019d played down in public) and emerged with a more balanced perspective on how to enjoy the everyday pleasures in life. He faced demons from his youth that have fueled him throughout his career. And he reassessed his role in the nonprofit work that has captured so much of his passion and energy over the decades. He\u2019s gone deep within himself and come out different. Better.<\/p>\n But as much introspection as Bono may have done here by the Mediterranean, it\u2019s not in his nature to sit idle or live in the past. The relentless drive that has propelled the singer and his band for nearly fifty years now is very much still there. And much like in his early years in the South of France, he\u2019s feeling newly energized. U2 is in the studio working on songs\u2014perhaps the band\u2019s first album of new music in nearly a decade\u2014and his excitement about the material is palpable. Bono, it\u2019s clear, has more stories to tell. And he believes the world needs to hear them.<\/p>\n Anton Corbijn<\/p>\n Coat, jacket, and trousers by\u00a0Umit\u00a0<\/strong>Benan;<\/strong>\u00a0T-Shirt by\u00a0Dries Van Noten;\u00a0<\/strong>hat by\u00a0Lock & Co.;<\/strong>\u00a0sandals by\u00a0Toga\u00a0<\/strong>Virilis;\u00a0<\/strong>cane by\u00a0Ottavio Recalcati;\u00a0<\/strong>sunglasses and jewelry, Bono\u2019s own.<\/p>\n He never planned for his one-man show to become a multimedia onslaught. The dates were already set for his performances when Apple Studios first arrived with its pitch to film the show. Still, it didn\u2019t take long for the frontman and the tech giant to get carried away. Ideas for two versions soon emerged, a made-for-the-screen version that primarily features the live show as well as an immersive version for the Vision Pro that features illustrations Bono drew himself. \u201cIt became more of an undertaking,\u201d Bono admits. \u201cAll of this stuff does. It does!\u201d Director Andrew Dominik came onboard shortly after, and from then on, \u201cit was no days off.\u201d <\/p>\n As one fourth of U2\u2014a band in which, famously, everyone has equal say and an equal stake in the revenue from the music\u2014Bono has spent much of his life locked in a game of creative tug-of-war. But the filmmaker behind Blonde and Killing Them Softly pushed the singer in ways he didn\u2019t expect. Making Bono rip at the scars left by the death of his mother and his difficult relationship with his father in ways even writing his memoir hadn\u2019t. The results aren\u2019t just in the work; they\u2019ve had a butterfly effect on his whole life\u2014setting him free of decades\u2019 worth of pent-up rage and resentment. <\/p>\n \u201cThe only place we disagreed,\u201d Bono recalls of the director, \u201cis that Andrew wanted to make a documentary around the show.\u201d It felt unnatural. His bandmate helped him articulate why: \u201cIt was Edge, actually, who told Andrew, \u2018You find Bono onstage. You\u2019re not going to find him backstage.\u2019\u2009\u201d<\/p>\n Bono is many things\u2014a rock \u2019n\u2019 roll salesman and an activist, a showboat and a charmer, a campaigner and a lightning rod. No one has ever accused him of being an actor. And Dominik wouldn\u2019t tolerate anything that felt performative. While they were rehearsing one particularly intense set piece, Bono recalls standing up on a wooden table (in that moment representing a hospital bed) and playing both himself and his father, Bob Hewson, during his father\u2019s final breaths. He was going for it\u2014screaming his father\u2019s final, explicit words\u2014but it wasn\u2019t enough for the filmmaker.<\/p>\n \u201cNah, mate, you\u2019re acting!\u201d Dominik would shout.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no one there!\u201d Bono would bellow back. \u201cWhat am I gonna do?\u201d <\/p>\n Dominik\u2019s reply: \u201cNot act.\u201d <\/p>\n Did it work? I ask. <\/p>\n \u201cWell, you\u2019ve seen it.\u201d <\/p>\n How are you feeling, waiting for the film\u2019s release?<\/p>\n \u201cI feel a bit of nausea,\u201d he admits. \u201cAnd I really am fed up with the protagonist.\u201d <\/p>\n The origin story of U2 has become part of the band\u2019s mythology over the decades. In 1976, fourteen-year-old Larry Mullen Jr. hangs a flyer on the bulletin board of his Dublin high school, Mount Temple, reading drummer seeks musicians to form band. Paul Hewson, David Evans, and Adam Clayton all show up. Mullen knew how to play his instrument, the drums. And Evans (you know him as the Edge) was showing early signs of guitar-god talent. Clayton had attitude. And Hewson was desperate\u2014for community, mainly. <\/p>\n Hewson, who would soon after embrace the nickname Bono, was still reeling from the loss of his mother two years prior. \u201cThis guy was really, really, really alone,\u201d recalls childhood best friend Gavin Friday, who, before founding the band the Virgin Prunes in 1977, lived down the block from Bono. \u201cIt\u2019s why our friendships became so tight.\u201d Bono\u2019s father, Bob, was just forty-eight at the time of his wife Iris\u2019s death and quickly embraced a life out on the town. Bono\u2019s brother, Norman, was seven years his senior, living a much more adult life. And then there was Bono, without a whole hell of a lot to do, at home. Each man coiled into himself. After Iris died, the three men never spoke her name again. <\/p>\n Bono\u2019s charm and moxie kept him afloat in the years that followed. \u201cOn Fridays, we always had fish and chips\u2014you don\u2019t eat meat on Fridays back in old Catholic Ireland\u2014and he would ring the doorbell at five minutes to six o\u2019clock,\u201d says Friday. \u201cHe knew I would be sitting down with my three brothers, and my mom would answer like, \u2018Oh Paul, come in, come in,\u2019 and she\u2019d make him a plate.\u201d He\u2019d rush out soon after, Friday adds. \u201cHe was doing this with three other families on the block!\u201d <\/p>\n Friday laughs at the memory, but he tells the story for a reason: \u201cMan, what a survivor,\u201d he adds as his laughter fades. \u201cHow hard it was for this little boy to be alone in this house\u2014no mother, no father, no brother, no money.\u201d <\/p>\n Bono struggled with Bob. He never felt like he got any attention at all. And when he did, he felt cut down by his father\u2019s barbs and one-liners. It put a fire in his belly\u2014not just to get off Cedarwood Road or even out of Dublin but to become something so big, so undeniable, that even Bob Hewson couldn\u2019t look away. <\/p>\n In some respects, this worked. His band has sold 175 million records<\/a> at last count and racked up twenty-two Grammys. He\u2019s fronted a stadium act for more than four decades. He has had homes in Dublin and France and New York and Los Angeles. In others, it fell short. Says Friday: \u201cI have a memory of being at the Joshua Tree show in New York and I was standing beside Bob Hewson. And Joshua Tree was going off, and the crowd was just euphoric. And I touched him and said, \u2018You must be so proud of your son.\u2019 And he said, \u2018Yeah, I am, but I\u2019m not going to tell that fucker.\u2019\u2009\u201d <\/p>\n When Bob died in 2001, Bono was still mad at him. He struggled to explore the depth of his emotion, but when his wife told him that she always thought that the original spark of his anger was that Bono blamed Bob for the death of his mother, something clicked. Maybe it had also been tough for Bob, he realized. Maybe a raging teenager living down the hall didn\u2019t help. Maybe it even made staying home too painful to bear. A year later, around Easter, Bono wandered up the hill near his home in France to a little chapel. He got down on his knees and asked his father for forgiveness. \u201cI was expecting the apology,\u201d recalls Bono, \u201cbut I think the conversation had been the wrong way around.\u201d <\/p>\n Healing finally began. Writing the memoir helped, but the stage show has been the most therapeutic exercise yet. Performing his father\u2019s well-worn lines\u2014his disses and jabs, which hurt so much in real time\u2014in front of an audience and earning laughter in return surprised him. \u201cI realized it was his sense of humor,\u201d he says. \u201cMy whole life it came across as only cutting, but I realized how very funny it was.\u201d<\/p>\n He realized a few things about himself as well. \u201cThat I had been a little humorless,\u201d he begins. \u201cI should have laughed more rather than be so hurt by it.\u201d (Elsewhere during our time together, he considers just how important laughter has become to him. \u201cI\u2019m starting to realize that I don\u2019t trust people who don\u2019t make me laugh\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009and I wonder, was I one of them?\u201d)<\/p>\n Coat, trousers, and pin by Ferragamo; T-shirt by Dries Van Noten; hat by Lock & Co.; sunglasses and jewelry, Bono\u2019s own.<\/p>\n He also began to consider that his burning need to set the world right\u2014to help God across the road as if she were a little old lady\u2014is maybe also something Da deserves a little credit for. \u201cI started to realize that all of those arguments that we used to have at the kitchen table, he was always on the side of social justice,\u201d he says. \u201cHe owns that part of me.\u201d <\/p>\n So few of us see our parents clearly while they\u2019re still here, but it\u2019s palpable just how much Bono wishes he had. That he\u2019s gotten where he is now\u2014to this place of peace\u2014is a relief tinged with sadness. \u201cI began to really like him, as well as love him,\u201d he says of what changed in him during the performances. In time, \u201cI even began to miss him.\u201d <\/p>\n Let\u2019s get one thing out of the way: That you like Bono is not a given. He knows that. The most provocative member of one of rock \u2019n\u2019 roll\u2019s most provocative acts, he has divided audiences since U2\u2019s third album, War, which explored the aftereffects of a youth spent surrounded by political violence. \u201cSunday Bloody Sunday,\u201d about the 1972 afternoon when British soldiers opened fire on a crowd of civilian protesters<\/a> in Derry, Northern Ireland, became a career song for the group, propelling the LP to become the band\u2019s first number-one album in the UK. It also became a road map for the rest of its tenure.<\/p>\n Throughout the band\u2019s debut and follow-up (Boy in 1980, October in 1981), Bono, the Edge, and Larry Mullen Jr. were locked in a personal religious struggle. They\u2019d fallen in with a church of Christian fundamentalists, called Shalom, and their calling to Jesus was increasingly difficult to square with something as flip as sex, drugs, and rock \u2019n\u2019 roll. As their profile continued to rise, so did their pastor\u2019s displeasure. Tormented, they decided that to stick with this business, they\u2019d have to make their music mean something. <\/p>\n One problem: Meaning it isn\u2019t very rock \u2019n\u2019 roll. It remains U2\u2019s original sin, for many, that they have never pretended not to care. They have never been effortless or cool in a Keith Richards kind of way<\/a>, and there is nothing accidental about their reign. Sincere to the point of being earnest, occasionally even sanctimonious, they have tried hard the whole time and told you all about it. They have declared that rock \u2019n\u2019 roll could change the world and then acted like it\u2014writing songs about political conflicts, international relations, and justice. They have desecrated flags and spat at world leaders from their stage. <\/p>\n It has yielded a particularly complex relationship with their home country. Growing up during the Troubles<\/a>, U2 spent much of their early career screaming for peace. Advocating for nonviolent methods of protest and demanding that the international community stop funding organizations that supported violence in Ireland. \u201cFor certain people of a certain generation, we carry a lot of baggage,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd for some people, we\u2019re helping them with their luggage.\u201d <\/p>\n Certain controversies haven\u2019t helped. Accusations of tax avoidance have burbled over the years, though Bono has always been quick to remind people that nothing they\u2019ve done is illegal\u2014and that they do indeed pay a shitload of taxes. And then, of course, there was the iTunes gifting fiasco in 2014, in which all platform users received a free copy of Songs of Innocence in their libraries on release day, whether they wanted it or not. Bono didn\u2019t see that reaction coming but takes all the credit for the decision. <\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s very open to the fact that he may have done things correctly or not correctly,\u201d says record-label boss and Beats cofounder turned Apple music exec Jimmy Iovine. Iovine first met U2 in the mid-1980s, before they broke big in America, and says he chased them all the way back to Ireland, begging them to work with him. \u201cHe\u2019s one of the most honest people that you could possibly work with. No matter what happens, Bono doesn\u2019t blame anybody. He takes full responsibility for everything in his life.\u201d <\/p>\n By the third time Bono mentions the two-pronged reaction to his band (\u201cWe were loved and loathed,\u201d he says, \u201cit really was both\u201d), it occurs to me that he may get some enjoyment out of the idea that there are so many people who don\u2019t like U2. As he sees it, that\u2019s part of the job. \u201cThey say sometimes, you know, \u2018You better have your armor on. You\u2019re about to walk out and get killed.\u2019 Isn\u2019t that what you\u2019re supposed to do?\u201d <\/p>\n In 2016, Bono was flat on his back, chest cut wide open, in the operating room of Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. He was undergoing open-heart surgery to fix an aortic aneurysm, a condition that arose due to an irregularly shaped valve. It was something he\u2019d lived with his whole life, but now, due to wear and tear, there was a chance it could kill him. <\/p>\n Recovery was hard, and the massive thirty-year-anniversary tour for the Joshua Tree album loomed. \u201cThe loss of air\u201d is what he remembers most of the aftermath, a complication that arose following the successful operation. Four decades of sprinting around stadiums while singing\u2014screaming\u2014had given him a lung capacity far greater than his peers. But Bono suddenly felt like he\u2019d lost control of the intake. \u201cIt terrified me,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019d never been so terrified.\u201d <\/p>\n His inner circle suggested that he cancel the shows, but Bono wouldn\u2019t hear of it. And for the first time in his career, maybe even his life, he accepted his limitations. He kept the dates but stood still during performances. He was surprised by the results. \u201cThe singing improved,\u201d he admits. \u201cI started to realize I had just been shouting for a living,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n It\u2019s only gotten better in the years since. And now, in his seventh decade, he feels like he\u2019s painting with entirely new colors. \u201cI had better find some really great songs for it,\u201d he says. Luckily, he can control that. \u201cThat\u2019s on me and my mate,\u201d he remarks, referring to his songwriting partnership with the Edge. \u201cAnd guess what? There\u2019s nothing else that he or I want to do that comes close to it.\u201d <\/p>\n Bono\u2019s surgery wasn\u2019t a secret, but in the years that followed, he resisted reflecting on it in interviews. Today, relaxing on his couch, he says he\u2019s \u201cso grateful\u201d for the episode. Health scares have a way of immediately putting your priorities in order, after all. They tend to make you stop and appreciate what you have and how you got there. For Bono, that meant freeing him to finally look back and examine the different stages of his remarkable life. The 2017 Joshua Tree anniversary tour, the memoir, the insular 2023 LP Songs of Surrender, the Achtung Baby revival at the Sphere\u2014it all culminates with Bono: Stories of Surrender. \u201cI don\u2019t believe in destiny, but it happened in the right order,\u201d he says. \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t want to stay there too long, but you do have to acknowledge where you came from, at a certain point.\u201d <\/p>\n Following his operation, Bono\u2019s family had what sounds like a lifestyle intervention. Their message was clear: \u201cYou have to think more about regular life.\u201d It was time, they argued, that he stop and smell the proverbial roses. What is regular life? \u201cGenuinely,\u201d he recalls, \u201cthey said, \u2018Things like watching TV.\u2019\u2009\u201d <\/p>\n Someone in his office recommended the Chef\u2019s Table docuseries. \u201cI said, Come on, you cannot be serious,\u201d recalls Bono. \u201cI\u2019ve got to watch Chef\u2019s Table?\u201d Assuming you, like me, are very much a person who engages with regular life (TV), I am certain you can guess how this story ends: Bono\u2019s first Netflix binge. He loved the episode that followed Evan Funke through Bologna (\u201che\u2019s got a great value system\u201d) and the one focused on Jeong Kwan, a Buddhist nun who cooks for visitors at her temple (\u201cincredible!\u201d) and, of course, the Francis Mallmann installment (\u201cI\u2019m like, wow. And I had just met him on tour\u201d). <\/p>\n His eldest, Jordan, got him into Fleabag. His second daughter, Eve, an actress who has found onscreen success in Bad Sisters and The Perfect Couple, introduced him to The Kardashians. At some point, he even caught some Love Island. He slowed down. Said no. Not as much as he should, but more than he had. \u201cI\u2019m not very good at that,\u201d he admits. And as his foundations (RED) and ONE chugged along, he finally reconsidered his involvement. \u201cMaybe I should fuck off into the background,\u201d the thinking went. <\/p>\n Shirt by Giorgio Armani; sunglasses and jewelry, Bono\u2019s own.<\/p>\n Bono founded ONE in 2004 and (RED) in 2006. They are as much his life\u2019s work as his music is. But in late 2023, Bono stepped down from the shared board. He knew it was time to promote a new generation of young activists. And, as he says, at this point, \u201cI\u2019m the wrong sex, wrong age, wrong color, wrong ethnicity, and I\u2019m not African.\u201d Still, it\u2019s obvious how hard the decision was. Is. \u201cYou need to find your place, don\u2019t you? Where to be useful. I had found a place where I could be useful,\u201d he says. He misses it. <\/p>\n Maybe it\u2019s his messiah complex. He can admit he has one. \u201cAny rock star worth their salt has to,\u201d he says. But it\u2019s also this moment in history. \u201cThe most unbelievable carnage imaginable is happening to our work at (RED) and ONE,\u201d he says of the careless slashing of USAID<\/a> and other global relief efforts by the Trump administration. \u201cThese are the brightest, best people, who\u2019ve given their lives trying to serve the poorest, most vulnerable communities, and they\u2019ve just been thrown in the dumpster.\u201d <\/p>\n Bono has worked well with both Republican and Democratic administrations during his tenure. It\u2019s something he\u2019s caught flack for from the left over the years, especially his willingness to partner with George W. Bush during the Iraq war, but, to be frank, Bono doesn\u2019t give a shit. The AIDS relief orchestrated alongside W. is the largest single-issue health intervention in the history of the United States. What\u2019s a few hits in the headlines against that? On the global political ideological spectrum, Bono does not consider himself a liberal. \u201cI describe myself as a radical centrist,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd I am sure that that sounds absurd, but I am also sure that is how we get through the future. What\u2019s being served up on the far left and on the far right is not where we need to be.\u201d <\/p>\n At first, the Trump administration challenged his resolve. In time, it changed his worldview. Prior to 2016, Bono says he frequently meditated on a particular Martin Luther King Jr. quote: \u201cThe arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.\u201d He no longer believes that today. \u201cWe have to bend it,\u201d he says. \u201cThrough sheer force of will.\u201d <\/p>\n But staring down this current reality, he admits, \u201cI don\u2019t know how to proceed.\u201d <\/p>\n For forty years, Bono has been one of the loudest and best-known advocates for globalization. He has staked his reputation, a lot of his money, and a lot of other people\u2019s money on the belief that the more blended the world becomes, the better off everyone in it becomes. He watched it raise Ireland out of poverty, and he\u2019s seen it bring industry and infrastructure to Africa. Ten years ago, we were, he felt, on our way to solving a lot of the world\u2019s problems. And now he is watching as a violent snap back toward nationalism has spread across continents. \u201cI\u2019ve been very angry,\u201d he says. \u201cBut you don\u2019t have the luxury.\u201d There\u2019s too much at stake.<\/p>\n He is particularly disturbed by what\u2019s happening in the U.\u2009S. \u201cThe United States has been a promised land to a lot of people, but it looks like it\u2019s about to break that promise,\u201d he says. \u201cI can understand people coming to a place where they say, \u2018I don\u2019t see why the United States has to pay for aid, drugs, or anything else in places far away where there is no vote.\u2019 I think that position is dumb. I think it makes a lot of geopolitical troubles for you down the road, but I can understand it.\u201d<\/p>\n What he cannot accept is \u201cthe delight that was taken in the destruction of life-support systems\u2014pulling them out of the wall\u2014that\u2019s the clue to the true nature of this. Evil walks amongst us, but it is rarely this obvious.\u201d <\/p>\n Bono has a few life rafts he\u2019s clinging to. First, that this may be the moment that truly unites Europe. \u201cI always say, \u2018Europe is a thought that needs to become a feeling,\u2019 \u201d\u2009 he says. \u201cWe\u2019re 450 million people\u2014we\u2019ve got a lot. And if we can keep the European project a romantic one, that could be a great thing.\u201d<\/p>\n And second, \u201cI believe the old adage that if you give Americans the facts, that they will make the right choice. Problem is getting them the facts, especially right now.\u201d <\/p>\n And third, \u201cI\u2019ve got to believe that freedom is more fun,\u201d he says. \u201cYou see these people\u2014they don\u2019t look like they\u2019re having any fun. You need that anarchic spirit to change the world. Pot-smoking, opinionated, fun, adventurous people like Steve Jobs. Einstein sticking his tongue out. You don\u2019t get that in autocracy. We\u2019ve got to bring freedom with us, everywhere we go.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cYou didn\u2019t happen to see that Jeff Bridges interview recently, did you?\u201d<\/p>\n Bono is asking me about a recent sit-down<\/a> the actor had with The Guardian, where he discussed, among other things, how all of life is really just one big search for harmony. Harmony in music but also in the rooms you stand in and the groups you associate with. \u201cHe said, \u2018Like, trees and flowers are magic,\u2019\u2009\u201d recalls Bono. \u201cAnd I knew exactly what he meant. I was laughing and had tears in my eyes at the wisdom of the man.\u201d <\/p>\n It\u2019s an idea Bono comes back to several times as we speak. A week later, on Zoom, he\u2019s asking me where I live and, once he learns that I\u2019m a New Yorker, if I go for walks in Central Park. Bike rides with Ali there were his favorite part of living in Manhattan, which the family did for a short time a decade and a half ago. \u201cThe great educator in New York is the park,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s university.\u201d As so many things do with Bono, this conjures a broader reflection: \u201cIf I was doing all that again, I would be more open to the idea of the divine in everything.\u201d <\/p>\n Sweater by Dries Van Noten. Sunglasses, Bono\u2019s own.<\/p>\n Following conversation threads with Bono is usually a journey and often an exercise in Old World literature and religious theory. (\u201cDo you mind if I go on just a tiny tangent?\u201d he asks more than once.) From memories of Central Park bike rides we move swiftly into the Franciscan idea that God\u2019s goodness is present in all creation and then right along to Pope Francis\u2019s 2015 encyclical, Laudato si\u2019, in which the Catholic leader<\/a> decries political acts that violate the earth and calls for radical intervention in caring for our shared natural home. It all connects, and we do, always, in time come back to the original prompt. \u201cIt\u2019s a beautiful idea, when you start to see a walk in the park as a kind of cathedral,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n But for all of Bono\u2019s ability to get carried away by big ideas\u2014you\u2019ve heard a U2 song, right?\u2014he remains remarkably self-aware. He can pull his most lofty tangent right back down to earth, usually in the form of a punchline. \u201cOf course,\u201d he adds, \u201cit\u2019s also important to note that a tree can also just be a tree. It doesn\u2019t have to be a lesson in Latin.\u201d <\/p>\n It\u2019s a curious thing, who survives the music industry and who doesn\u2019t. Bono credits this sort of thinking\u2014faith in the divine in everything, faith in Jesus Christ\u2014for what has pulled him through. His community as well. \u201cThere is a very lonely place you can find yourself onstage if you\u2019re not friends with the people you are closest to in that moment,\u201d says Bono. \u201cI have my friends in the band.\u201d <\/p>\n He also has his wife of forty-two years: \u201cI have a partner who is just wisdom.\u201d <\/p>\n And one very good lesson from Chrissie Hynde. \u201cI remember her saying, \u2018Hey, let\u2019s not die stupid,\u2019\u2009\u201d he says. \u201c\u2009\u2018Not in a swimming pool, choking on your own vomit. Come on, man. You know what\u2019s really great? Living a long life. That would be great, wouldn\u2019t it?\u2019\u2009\u201d <\/p>\n Like most dads, Bono lights up when you ask about his kids. Every sentence is suddenly punctuated with a laugh. He dotes on them, even now that they\u2019re grown. \u201cIf I was shaped by trying to get my father\u2019s attention,\u201d says Bono, \u201cthose kids have been somewhat shaped by trying to get their father\u2019s attention off of them.\u201d <\/p>\n Bono and Ali could have raised their kids anywhere and sent them to any fancy school. Instead, they returned to Dublin. Yes, they bought a big house. But they sent the kids to a free, nondenominational school that sounds an awful lot like the Mount Temple of their own youth. (They gave that alternate reality a go with their younger two children for a couple years in New York, where the kids attended the prestigious Dalton school. But as Bono recalls, \u201cAfter a while, the boys came back saying, \u2018Our heads hurt a little bit. Can we go home to Ireland?\u2019\u2009\u201d)<\/p>\n They take comfort in the fact that Dublin does not bend around them. That the chances a neighbor loves or hates U2 feel evenly split and where, as a culture, \u201cbeing wealthy does not make you interesting.\u201d As Gavin Friday puts it, \u201cThe Irish are pretty good at bashing their own.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"e\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/2-6835dca3aa9e6.jpg\" "\\"e\\"")
<\/p>\n![\"e\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/1-6835dcc36f6aa.jpg\" "\\"e\\"")
Anton Corbijn<\/p>\n![\"e\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/pq1-6835de26956bc.png\" "\\"e\\"")
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Anton Corbijn<\/p>\n![\"e\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/pq2-6835de5930ead.png\" "\\"e\\"")
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Anton Corbijn<\/p>\n![\"e\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/esq060125-coverstorydig-010-6835da95b138b.jpg\" "\\"e\\"")
Anton Corbijn<\/p>\n
![\"e\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/esq060125-coverstorydig-009-6835dabc867af.jpg\" "\\"e\\"")
Anton Corbijn<\/p>\n