What You Never Knew About Bono

Don't be fooled by the short name of U2, because the band — with lead singer Bono at the helm — has long been a staple in the music industry. In 2005, after decades of work, the group was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. But U2 wasn't even close to retiring. In 2017, the Irish rock outfit released their "Songs of Experience" album, which became the band's eighth record to reach the top spot on the Billboard 200 chart — with this achievement, U2 became "the only group with No. 1s in the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and 2010s," according to Billboard. 

Throughout all those years, Bono himself became almost as popular outside of music as he was while rocking out on stage. Forget the EGOT, "Bono is the only person to have been nominated for a Grammy, a Golden Globe, an Oscar and the Nobel Peace Prize," per the Independent. Among his many honors, he won the Nobel Peace Summit Award in 2008, and France twice awarded the singer cultural honors, partly for forming charities to fight against global issues like poverty and HIV/AIDS (via BBC News).

But even with his all-around international success, Bono has dealt with many setbacks — all while carrying on helping others through his music and philanthropic efforts. It's hard to doubt the influence of someone who goes by just one name, but here's what you never knew about Bono.

Bono grew up in the "working-class Finglas neighborhood of North Dublin," according to Religion News Service. One of his childhood friends — the aforementioned artist, Guggi — remembered how he and Bono were different from many of the other kids. "We didn't know what to say when they would want us to name our favorite football players," Guggi said, noting how he believed that he and Bono "could get beaten up for supporting the wrong team or not supporting anybody."

But outside the threat of bullies, Bono faced true heartbreak at the age of 14. In an interview with FULLER Studio called "Beyond the Psalms," Bono explained, "My mother died at her own father's gravesite as he was being lowered into the ground. She had an aneurysm." Though Bono claimed that "she left me," he also explained how this moment was the start of his life as an artist: "I began the journey, trying to fill the whole in my heart with music, with my mates, my bandmates."

Bono continued to grow up with just his brother and dad after his mom's untimely death. Speaking with Larry King, the U2 singer recalled struggling with the loss, and considered those times as like living "in a house, but it's not a home." Bono also revealed that he had a strained relationship with his father, who died in 2001, and confessed, "I kind of made peace with him before he died, but I wished I had put that right earlier."

In 1976, a teenager named Larry Mullen put an ad up in Dublin's Temple Mount School with the phrase, "Drummer seeks musicians to form band," per U2's website. As a result, Mullen remembered, "This odd group of people convened in my kitchen in Artane." Bono was the lead vocalist, with The Edge playing guitar, Adam Clayton on bass guitar, and Mullen on the drums — although, Bono once admitted that he and the other guys were "a band before we could play," and during an interview with Larry King, he referred to the future Grammy-winning group as "a high school band." The oldest of the four young men was only 16 when they started, and Mullen was 14. 

At first, U2 called themselves Feedback, and then the name changed to The Hype. It turns out that a non-bandmember — Steven Averill, who designed the group's album covers — came up with the two-character name, U2. As the singer recalled of first hearing the idea, "I thought it was a submarine, but then it was a spy plane." Indeed, the U-2 stealth plane was mostly remembered for a 1960 incident, in which the Soviet Union shot down one of these American aircrafts, per History.

Though the new band name stuck, Bono revealed, "I don't like the name, U2, actually." In fact, he told King that he felt U2 belonged in "the history of great rock 'n' roll bands with crap names," not unlike the Beatles.

Bono could probably be distilled into three defining traits: he sings, he's a humanitarian, and he seems to be always wearing sunglasses. In the early '80s, this was not the case. While performing, like at the 1985 Live Aid event, Bono simply had awesome long hair but no eyewear. However, by the time the band shot the music video for "Discothèque" off of U2's 1997 album, "Pop," he appeared to never take his sunglasses off. 

While appearing as a guest on "The Graham Norton Show," Bono revealed the reason for his distinctive look: The U2 frontman always wears sunglasses, even indoors, because he has glaucoma. In fact, at the time of the interview in 2014, Bono admitted he'd had the eye condition for 20 years. Perhaps surprisingly, however, he revealed that his natural eyesight is a "perfect 20/20 vision," but added that he also had "strange visions and steam coming into the room," in addition to seeing "rings around lights." So, he started wearing tinted lenses to help with the effects of glaucoma. 

Bono later explained that he didn't tell many people the reason, because with that knowledge, "You're never going to be able to get it out of your head. And you're just [going to say], 'There's poor, old, blind Bono.'" But luckily, he may never have to buy another pair again: As a famous musician, Bono is constantly gifted sunglasses by other people.

In between singing, acting, and working to save the world, Bono also likes to play chess. The U2 frontman first became interested in the board game as a young man. "In Ballymun we had a chess club," he wrote to player Garry Kasparov, referencing the Dublin suburb. "Like so many kids at the beginning of the 70s, I fell head over heels for this dizzy strategic game." 

Of his childhood, Bono added, "I have fond memories of the Phisboro club also where myself and my friend Joseph Marks were let play with the grown ups." The singer explained that he and his friends' favorite celebrities weren't in music, but rather, the kids considered chess masters like Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky as "pop stars at the time." Bono's favorite player while growing up? "Anatoly Karpov, the Russian grand master," he wrote.

During a conversation between Bono and Bob Dylan in 1984, both musicians revealed that they played chess. Though Dylan didn't have a chess board on hand, he accepted Bono's challenge to play a game in the future (unfortunately, no word on how that potential match went down). Even though Bono still loved chess later in life, he's admitted that he wouldn't do well facing up against his younger self. "Looking back, the arrival of puberty and learning to play the guitar may have hampered my dexterity in the game," Bono wrote to Kasparov, adding of his strategic skills, "It is not like riding a bike, I have recently discovered."

Bono was one of several members to make up Elevation Partners, an investment group whose mission was "to help media and entertainment businesses develop and market great content," per 24/7 Wall St. The singer put his own money on the line by investing in companies that he and the group thought could be profitable. One example of a very bad deal, however, was buying into Palm, a phone brand that essentially disappeared in the wake of mobile devices from Apple and Google. From other investments that reportedly lost Bono a lot of money, the publication referred to the U2 star as "the worst investor in America" in 2010. 

But Bono would have the last laugh with a well-timed investment in Facebook prior to its initial public offering (IPO). Elevation Partners purchased a significant number of shares in the social media site, and after it performed well on the stock market, some publications incorrectly reported that Bono became a billionaire. While he didn't join the ranks of the ultra-rich like Bill Gates, the Irish rocker still made a huge amount of dough, with Fortune estimating that Bono's personal take home amount from the Facebook deal was around $43 million.

Bono and his wife, Ali Hewson, have four children together. In addition to oldest daughter Jordan Hewson (born in 1989) and youngest son John Hewson (born in 2001), their two middle children are daughter Eve Hewson and son Elijah Hewson (born in 1991 and 1999, respectively), who both went on to pursue careers in entertainment. 

Elijah is the lead singer of a band called Inhaler. "We were struggling to find a band name that we could all agree on for a long time. I'm asthmatic so my sister as a joke used to call us The Inhalers and it kind of caught on," he told BBC News. All jokes aside, the band quickly grew in popularity, with Inhaler playing with Oasis' Noel Gallagher and going on their first U.S. tour with Blossoms in 2019. Though Elijah said he still lived at home and often heard his famous dad playing, the young man wanted to create his own path in the industry, saying of Bono, "I try not to ask him about music."

As for Bono's daughter, Eve, she's grown up to be an actor. Linking up with some of the biggest names in Hollywood, she's appeared in Steven Spielberg's 2015 film, "Bridge of Spies," as well as Steven Soderbergh's TV show, "The Knick." In 2021, she starred in the Netflix series, "Behind Her Eyes." When looking for roles, Eve told The Telegraph that she prefers to stay away from "playing characters that are based on looks" and hates scripts about "the most beautiful girl in the room."

Early in Bono's career, he started to use his influence to bring awareness to global issues. During his acceptance speech at the 1988 Grammy Awards for album of the year, for example, he talked about the difficult subject on his mind. "It's hard, when there's 50 million people or so watching, not to take the opportunity to talk about things like South Africa and what's happening there," Bono said. And the artist was serious about helping others, as he's dedicated much of his career towards humanitarian efforts. Even as U2 continued to grow in popularity, it seems as though he's sometimes felt guilty of working on anything music related. 

"There are Arab revolts, there are f**king famines in East Africa, and here are four men talking about their creative process," Bono told Interview magazine in 2011. As an activist, the singer co-founded the charitable organizations ONE and (RED). According to ONE's website, its mission is "to end extreme poverty and preventable disease." Meanwhile, (RED) is focused on partnerships with "brands to raise public awareness about and corporate contributions for the AIDS crisis."

While these causes seem noble, some critics have felt otherwise. For example, an opinion columnist for The New York Times wrote that Bono and other celebrities contributed to "the impression that Africa is fatally troubled and can be saved only by outside help." Meanwhile, in 2017, ONE also became embroiled in scandal when it was accused of "foster[ing] an atmosphere of bullying" and "abuse," per The New York Times, leading Bono to apologize on behalf of the organization.