Bono says he and his family received death and kidnapping threats during career
The U2 frontman was discussing his memoir as he recalled tensions with the IRA, mobs, and far-right Americans
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Your support makes all the difference.Bono has claimed that he and his family faced multiple death threats throughout his career.
The U2 frontman said that his band’s involvement in political activism got them into trouble on several occasions, with many posing genuine threats to his safety.
Bono, whose real name is Paul Hewson, was recounting the alleged violent threats against him while speaking about his forthcoming memoir, Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story, at The Times and The Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival.
The singer recalled how he had once come under threat in relation to U2’s tribute song about Martin Luther King, titled “Pride (In The Name Of Love)”.
While touring in Arizona in the 1980s, the band had been speaking out about the state’s refusal for a memorial day. This was apparently met by the threat that if Bono sang the full version of the lyrics, he wouldn’t make it to the end of the song.
The 62-year-old recalled half-kneeling and closing his eyes during the performance. Upon opening his eyes, he realised his bass player Adam Clayton had been standing protectively in front of him the whole time, reported The Times.
“He had been there for the entire verse,” the singer said during the festival.
Bono also shares in the memoir how his daughters were the subject of a kidnapping plot by a “gangland leader in Dublin”.
The singer had found out during the 1990’s that the leader “had been planning to kidnap [his daughters], that [the gangster’s] people had been casing our houses for several months and developed an elaborate plan”.
Bono’s forthcoming memoir will be released next month.
In other U2 news, the band recently expressed their support of the ongoing protests in Iran.
The Dublin band showed their support for those protesting by posting an image of the late Mahsa Amini to their 2.8 million followers, accompanied with words by the ancient poet Saadi Shirazi.