Age, Biography, and Wiki
Bono, born Paul David Hewson on May 10, 1960, in Dublin, Ireland, is best known for his role as the lead vocalist and co-founder of U2. He has been a pivotal figure in the music industry since the formation of U2 in 1976 with schoolmates Larry Mullen Jr., Adam Clayton, and David Evans (The Edge). Bono's career has spanned over four decades, with U2 achieving immense success and winning numerous awards, including 22 Grammy Awards.
| Occupation | Rock Singer |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | 10 May 1960 |
| Age | 65 Years |
| Birth Place | Dublin, Ireland |
| Horoscope | Taurus |
| Country | Ireland |
Height, Weight & Measurements
Bono stands at approximately 5 feet 6 inches (168 cm) tall. Specific details about his weight are not widely available, but he is known for his energetic stage presence and distinctive voice.
On 16 November 2014, Bono was involved in a "high energy bicycle accident" when he attempted to avoid another rider in New York's Central Park. Bono was rushed to NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center's Emergency Department and underwent "multiple X-rays and CAT scans" followed by five hours of surgery. Bono sustained fractures of the shoulder blade, humerus, orbit and pinky finger. Orthopaedic trauma surgeon Dean Lorich, MD, stated that "[Bono] was taken urgently to the operating room... where the elbow was washed out and debrided, a nerve trapped in the break was moved and the bone was repaired with three metal plates and 18 screws." Bono posted to U2's official website, "As I write this, it is not clear that I will ever play guitar again", as reported in Cycling Weekly.
| Height | 5 feet 6 inches |
| Weight | |
| Body Measurements | |
| Eye Color | |
| Hair Color |
Dating & Relationship Status
Bono has been married to Ali Hewson (née Stewart) since August 21, 1982. The couple has four children together: Jordan, Memphis Eve, and twins John Abraham and Eve Hewson.
Born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, he attended Mount Temple Comprehensive School where in 1976 he began dating his future wife, Alison Stewart, as well as forming, with schoolmates, the band that became U2. During U2's early years, Bono's lyrics contributed to the group's rebellious and spiritual tone. As the band matured, his lyrics became inspired more by personal experiences shared with the other members. As a member of U2, Bono has received 22 Grammy Awards and has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
The Hewson brothers grew up in an interdenominational Christian household; their mother was a member of the Church of Ireland, and their father was a Roman Catholic. Both parents initially agreed that the first child would be raised Anglican and the second Catholic. Although Bono was the second child, he also attended Church of Ireland services with his mother and brother, while his father also sometimes brought him to Mass at the nearby Catholic church, St Canice's. In 2000, Bono learned that Scott Rankin, a relative he thought to be his cousin, was actually his half-brother; Rankin was the offspring of an affair that Bob Hewson had with his wife's sister Barbara.
Bono's mother died on 10 September 1974, three days after suffering a ruptured cerebral aneurysm at her father's funeral. Many U2 songs, including "I Will Follow", "Mofo", "Out of Control", "Lemon" and "Tomorrow", focus on the loss of his mother. He said "because of the way I grew up in Finglas -- sleeping on a couch, or because my mother died when I was a kid, I was in the house on my own a lot of the time, so I'd knock on the door of the Hanveys at teatime, or the Rowens at lunchtime."
After Bono left school, his father told him he could live at home for one year, but if he was not able to pay his own way, he would have to leave the house.
While accepting the 2003 Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song for "The Hands That Built America", Bono called the award "really, really fucking brilliant!" during the live television broadcast. In response, the Parents Television Council condemned Bono for his profanity and started a campaign for its members to file complaints with the FCC. Although Bono's use of "fuck" violated FCC indecency standards, the FCC refused to fine NBC because the network did not receive advance notice of the consequences of broadcasting such profanity and the profanity in question was not used in its literal sexual meaning. In apparent reaction to the refusal, a group of congressmen introduced House Resolution 3687, the "Clean Airwaves Act", on 8 December 2003, aiming to amend section 1464 of title 18 of the United States Code to provide an explicit list of profane words and phrases and remove ambiguity that could enable certain uses of the phrases to be allowed. The bill was not enacted. The incident has had a long-term impact on the handling of profanity on live broadcasts.
From September to October 1985, Bono and his wife Ali Hewson made a humanitarian visit to Africa, spending a month working at a feeding centre in Ajibar, Ethiopia. Along with other volunteers, they developed an educational programme consisting of songs and one-act plays to teach Ethiopian children important information about issues such as health and hygiene. During the trip, he also became aware of the corruption, trade agreements, and debts that were all claimed to be contributing factors to the famine and poverty in Africa. The trip was cited as fueling Bono's passion for African issues that would come to characterise his future philanthropic and activist efforts.
Bono sketches and paints as a hobby. He developed his art style by drawing and painting on photographs, which he learned from his father who used to add colour to black-and-white instant film photographs of his wife. Describing Bono's interest in visual artwork, The Atlantic's editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg said, "He just walks around with an iPad and sketches everything."
Bono and his daughters Jordan and Eve provided original paintings for a 2003 book adaptation of Peter and the Wolf, which accompanied a musical release by Bono's friend Gavin Friday and Maurice Seezer. A CD-book package was released in November 2003. Bono's paintings, which were inspired by the 2001 death of his father, were auctioned at Christie's in New York. Proceeds from the sales of the paintings and CD-book package benefitted the Irish Hospice Foundation.
In 2005, Bono, Ali Hewson, and designer Rogan Gregory co-founded the EDUN fashion label ("nude" spelled backwards, to suggest both "natural" and the Garden of Eden). It was intended to help bring about positive change in Africa through a fair trade-based relationship rather than by direct aid.
At the age of thirteen, Bono met Alison "Ali" Stewart, who was one year below him at Mount Temple Comprehensive School. After the September 1974 death of his mother left him emotionally adrift and in conflict with his father and brother, Stewart began taking care of him. In 1976, Bono and Stewart began dating. The pair split up briefly but reunited. Their relationship became more serious as she accompanied him in his efforts to break through in the music industry, and by 1979 they were discussing marriage, conditional upon his career becoming established.
| Parents | |
| Husband | Ali Stewart (m. 1982) |
| Sibling | |
| Children |
Net Worth and Salary
As of 2025, Bono's net worth is estimated to be approximately $700 million. His earnings come from a combination of successful music albums, lucrative concert tours, and astute business investments. U2's concert tours, such as the 360° Tour, have been particularly profitable, with the latter grossing over $736 million.
The film also contains footage of the band's 11 November 1987 free "Save the Yuppies" concert at Justin Herman Plaza in San Francisco, during which Bono spray-painted "Rock N Roll Stops the Traffic" on the Vaillancourt Fountain sculpture. Bono was criticised by Mayor Dianne Feinstein and faced a misdemeanour for defacing public property. He apologised in a written statement to local officials, and the band's promoter Bill Graham agreed to pay to clean up the graffiti. With the band feeling a sense of musical stagnation towards the end of the Lovetown Tour, Bono hinted at changes to come during a 30 December 1989 concert; before a hometown crowd in Dublin, he said on stage that it was "the end of something for U2", and that "we have to go away and ... dream it all up again".
In an article in Bloomberg Markets in March 2007, journalists Richard Tomlinson and Fergal O'Brien noted that Bono used his band's 2006 Vertigo world tour to promote his ONE Campaign while at the same time "U2 was racking up $389 million in gross ticket receipts, making Vertigo the second-most lucrative tour of all time, according to Billboard magazine ... Revenue from the Vertigo tour is funnelled through companies that are mostly registered in Ireland and structured to minimise taxes."
Career, Business and Investments
Bono's career with U2 has been illustrious, marked by hits like "With or Without You" and "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For." Beyond his music, he has invested in real estate, including the Clarence Hotel in Dublin, which he transformed into a luxury boutique hotel. Additionally, he serves on the board of Elevation Partners, which has made significant investments in technology companies, including an early stake in Facebook.
Outside the band, he has recorded with numerous artists. He has collaborated with U2 bandmate the Edge on several projects, including: songs for Roy Orbison, Tina Turner, and Martin Garrix; and the soundtracks to the musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark and a London stage adaptation of A Clockwork Orange. In business, he invested in the refurbishment of the Clarence Hotel in Dublin, and was managing director and a managing partner of the private equity firm Elevation Partners, which invested in several companies.
U2 were criticised in 2007 for moving part of their multimillion-euro song catalogue from Ireland to Amsterdam six months before Ireland ended a tax exemption on musicians' royalties. Under Dutch tax law, bands are subject to low to non-existent tax rates. U2 manager Paul McGuinness stated that the arrangement was legal and customary and businesses often sought to minimise their tax burdens. The move prompted criticisms in the Irish parliament. The band later responded by stating that approximately 95% of their business took place outside Ireland, and that they were taxed globally because of this. Bono was one of several wealthy figures whose tax arrangements were singled out for criticism in a report by the charity Christian Aid in 2008.
Bono and the Edge have written and recorded several songs together outside of U2. They wrote the musical score for the Royal Shakespeare Company's London stage adaptation of A Clockwork Orange, which opened in 1990. The duo also wrote the eponymous theme song of the 1995 James Bond film GoldenEye, which was performed by Tina Turner. Bono and the Edge ventured into theatre again when they composed the music and lyrics for the Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark; they were featured on the soundtrack's single "Rise Above 1" with Reeve Carney in 2011. The duo collaborated with Jay-Z and Rihanna for the 2010 song "Stranded (Haiti Mon Amour)", which benefitted the Hope for Haiti Now relief telethon for the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Bono and the Edge were featured on the song "We Are the People" by Dutch DJ Martin Garrix, which served as the official song of the UEFA Euro 2020 tournament and was released on 14 May 2021.
The advocacy non-government organisation (NGO) DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa) was established in 2002 by Bono and Bobby Shriver, along with activists from Drop the Debt. The organisation was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, George Soros, and Edward W. Scott. In 2004, Bono and Shriver co-founded the One Campaign, with the aim of eliminating extreme poverty and disease in Africa by building citizen support. The organisation received a $3 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2006, Bono and Shriver collaborated again to found (Red), an organization that licenses the Product Red brand to partner companies to raise money for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Each company creates a product with the Product Red logo, and a percentage of the profits from the sale of these labelled products benefit the Global Fund. Partner companies include American Express, Apple, Converse, Motorola, Microsoft, Dell, The Gap, Giorgio Armani, Nike, and Starbucks; Bono was involved with securing most of Red's corporate partners. In October 2007, it was announced that DATA and One Campaign would merge in the United States and that the new organization would be known simply as One. Red currently operates as a sister organisation of One. As of December 2018, One has 10 million members, 3 million of whom are in Africa. As of December 2020, Red has generated $650 million to support HIV/AIDS grants. In 2023, Bono announced he would leave the board of directors of the One Campaign at the end of the year.
Bono has become one of the world's best-known philanthropic performers and was named the most politically effective celebrity of all time by the National Journal. He has been dubbed "the face of fusion philanthropy", both for his success enlisting powerful allies from a diverse spectrum of leaders in government, religious institutions, philanthropic organisations, popular media, and the business world, as well as for spearheading new organizational networks that bind global humanitarian relief with geopolitical activism and corporate commercial enterprise.
In 1992, Bono, along with the Edge, bought and refurbished Dublin's two-star 70-bedroom Clarence Hotel, and converted it into a five-star 49-bedroom hotel. In 2019, they sold the hotel leasehold, and four years later, they sold the property. Bono and McKillen are also co-owners of Clós Nua Ltd., a company that owns the Tramyard site in Dalkey and plans to redevelop it.
In 2016, Bono invested in and joined the board of directors of the "Rise Fund", a new $2 billion impact investment fund founded by TPG. Rise's investments fell across seven sectors, including agriculture, education, and healthcare, and were made into companies making "a measurable positive social and/or environmental impact". In 2019, Bono and TPG announced the creation of Y Analytics, a company intended to measure the social and environmental impacts of investments.
Bono was among those named in the 2017 Paradise Papers after he was identified as an investor in Nude Estates, which bought a shopping mall in Lithuania in 2007 and transferred ownership to Nude Estates 1 in Guernsey, in an apparent attempt to avoid tax. Bono welcomed the subsequent investigation by the Lithuanian tax authority, saying that transparency was necessary and he had personally campaigned for it. Nude Estates paid €53,000 in taxes and fines after the investigation was completed and Bono severed ties with the company.
Time ranked Bono 8th on its list of the "Most Influential Celebrities" in 2013; he was the only person from the music industry in the Top 10. In July 2013, he was honoured by the French government as a Commandeur de Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, the country's highest cultural honour.
Stewart and Bono married on 31 August 1982 in a Church of Ireland ceremony at All Saints Church in her home area, Raheny. The ceremony combined rituals of both conventional Protestantism and the Shalom Friendship Christian group that Bono and other U2 members had belonged to. U2 was in debt to their record label Island Records so the couple could not afford a honeymoon, but the label's founder Chris Blackwell gave them use of the Goldeneye estate he owned in Jamaica. After returning to Ireland, the couple moved to a small mews house in Howth, which they shared with the rest of U2.
Social Network
Bono is active on social media platforms, often using them to engage with fans and promote humanitarian causes. His presence on platforms like Twitter is notable, where he discusses his activism and music.
For his "Mirror Ball Man" stage character, Bono dressed in a shining silver lamé suit with matching shoes and cowboy hat. The character was meant to parody greedy American televangelists, showmen, and car salesman, and was inspired by Phil Ochs' Elvis persona from his 1970 tour. Bono said that the character represented "a kind of showman America. He had the confidence and charm to pick up a mirror and look at himself and give the glass a big kiss. He loved cash and in his mind success was God's blessing." Mirror Ball Man appeared during encores of concerts in 1992 and made prank calls from the stage, often to the White House in an attempt to reach U.S. President George H. W. Bush. Bono portrayed this alter ego on the first three legs of the tour, but replaced him with "MacPhisto" in 1993. MacPhisto was created to parody the devil and was named after Mephistopheles of the Faust legend. As MacPhisto, Bono wore a gold lamé suit with gold platform shoes, pale makeup, lipstick, and devil's horns on his head. As the character, Bono spoke with an exaggerated upper-class English accent, similar to that of a down-on-his-luck character actor. According to him, "We came up with a sort of old English Devil, a pop star long past his prime returning regularly from sessions on The Strip in Vegas and regaling anyone who would listen to him at cocktail hour with stories from the good old, bad old days." As MacPhisto, Bono continued his routine of making in-concert prank calls, targeting local politicians and mocking them by engaging them in character as the devil; he said, "When you're dressed as the Devil, your conversation is immediately loaded, so if you tell somebody you really like what they're doing, you know it's not a compliment."
In November 2022, Bono embarked on a 14-date book tour across North America and Europe called "Stories of Surrender" to promote his memoir Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story. For the shows, he recited and acted out passages from his book and performed U2 songs in stripped-down arrangements. Though described as a "one-man show", the performances were aided by musicians Kate Ellis (cello, keyboards, vocals), Gemma Doherty (harp, keyboards, vocals), and U2 producer Jacknife Lee ("musical director" – keyboards, percussion). Bono continued the tour with a residency of 11 shows at the Beacon Theatre in New York City from April to May 2023, which grossed $6.8 million. The shows were filmed for a documentary film, Bono: Stories of Surrender, which was released on Apple TV+ on 30 May 2025. It was also made available as an Apple Immersive Video for the Apple Vision Pro headset, making it the first feature-length film to be released in the format.
On 17 March 2020, Bono performed a new song, "Let Your Love Be Known", via livestream to fans during the COVID-19 pandemic. On 24 March, the song was released on YouTube, retitled "#SING4LIFE", as a collaboration with will.i.am, Jennifer Hudson, and Yoshiki.
Bono is known for his impassioned vocal style, often delivered in a high register through open-throated belting. Bono has been classified as a tenor, and according to him has a three-octave vocal range; one analysis found it to span from C♯2 to G♯5 on studio recordings over the course of his career. He frequently employs "whoa-oh-oh" vocalisations in his singing. Rock musician Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day said: "He's a physical singer, like the leader of a gospel choir, and he gets lost in the melodic moment. He goes to a place outside himself, especially in front of an audience, when he hits those high notes." He added that Bono is "not afraid to go beyond what he's capable of".
In the early days of U2, Bono unintentionally developed an English vocal accent as a result of him mimicking his musical influences such as Siouxsie and the Banshees. He said: "I still think that I sing like Siouxsie from The Banshees on the first two U2 albums. But I found my voice through Joey Ramone at that gig in Dublin. I stood there and heard him singing. He sang a bit like a girl too. It was all going to be OK after all. That was my way in." His vocal style evolved during the band's exploration of roots music for The Joshua Tree; Spin said that he learned to command "the full whisper-to-shout range of blues mannerisms". Bono attributed this maturation to "loosening up", "discover[ing] other voices", and employing more restraint in his singing. For "Where the Streets Have No Name", Bono varied the timbre of his voice extensively and used rubato to vary its timing, while author Susan Fast found "With or Without You" to be the first track on which he "extended his vocal range downward in an appreciable way".
Bono's drawings of his musical influences were featured in a December 2022 issue of The Atlantic in an article profiling him. The following year, Goldberg commissioned him to illustrate the cover of The Atlantic's June 2023 issue for a story about Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Bono's artwork, a line-drawing sketched portrait of Zelenskyy in the colours of the Ukrainian flag, was inspired by protest art and political posters. U2 also sold merchandise featuring the portrait, including T-shirts, posters, and hoodies, with all proceeds benefiting United24 to purchase ambulances for Ukraine.
Bono was an executive producer of Bill Carter's 1995 documentary film Miss Sarajevo. Carter had previously enlisted U2's help in bringing attention to the Siege of Sarajevo during their 1993 concerts on the Zoo TV Tour. Bono was also executive producer of the 2000 film The Million Dollar Hotel, which was developed from a story by himself and Nicholas Klein. It starred Jeremy Davies, Milla Jovovich, and Mel Gibson.
Bono's memoir, Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story, was released on 1 November 2022, and was promoted with a book tour called "Stories of Surrender". The book debuted at number two on The New York Times nonfiction best-seller list for the week ending 5 November 2022. For his work narrating the audiobook version of Surrender, Bono won the Audiobook of the Year honour at the 2024 Audie Awards. An abridged and updated version of the book with a new introduction was released in paperback under the title Bono: Stories of Surrender, as a tie-in to the Apple TV+ film of the same name released in May 2025.
Bono was a board member of the Elevation Partners private-equity firm, which attempted to purchase Eidos Interactive in 2005 and subsequently invested in other entertainment businesses. Bono was an investor in the Forbes Media group in the U.S. through Elevation Partners; his firm took a minority stake in Forbes Media, which encompassed the 89-year-old business that includes Forbes magazine, the Forbes.com website, and other assets. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but reports said the stake was worth about €194 million ($250 million). Elevation Partners also owned a 1.5 per cent stake in social networking site Facebook, originally purchased for $210 million. Although it was reported that Bono's stake was valued at approximately US$1 billion in February 2012, a 2015 article in Forbes stated that this estimate was based on an incorrect attribution of shares.
In 2016, during the recording sessions for U2's album Songs of Experience, Bono had what the Edge called a "brush with mortality"; as a result of the episode, he decided to rework the album's lyrics. The Irish Times reported that sometime in late 2016 between Christmas and New Year's Day, Bono had a near-death experience. At the time, he did not specify what had happened, but in his 2022 memoir Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story, he revealed that he had undergone open-heart surgery due to a "blister" that formed over time in his aorta as a result of having a bicuspid aortic valve. The eight-hour operation was performed by David H. Adams at Mount Sinai Hospital, and Bono made a full recovery.
Education
Bono attended Mount Temple Comprehensive School in Dublin, where he met his future bandmates. His education was influential in shaping his early interests in music and activism.
Bono's multifaceted career demonstrates his ability to excel both in music and business, while his commitment to activism has earned him international recognition and respect.
Bono attended a Protestant primary school, Glasnevin National School, rather than the local Catholic-managed primary school in Ballymun. His teenage musical idols were Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, David Bowie, and Marc Bolan of T. Rex. After attending St. Patrick's Cathedral Grammar School for a year, Bono moved to Mount Temple Comprehensive School, a multi-denominational school in Clontarf.
On 25 September 1976, Bono, David Evans ("The Edge"), his brother Dik Evans, and Adam Clayton responded to an advertisement on a bulletin board at Mount Temple posted by fellow student Larry Mullen Jr. seeking people interested in forming a rock band. The band had occasional jam sessions in which they did covers of other bands. Tired of long guitar solos and hard rock, Bono wanted to play the Rolling Stones and Beach Boys songs. The band could not play covers very well, so they started writing their own songs. The band went by the name "Feedback" for a few months, before changing to "The Hype" later on. After Dik Evans left the group to join another local band, the Virgin Prunes, the remaining four officially changed the name from "The Hype" to "U2". Initially, Bono sang, played guitar and wrote the band's songs. He said of his early guitar playing in a 1982 interview, "When we started out I was the guitar player, along with the Edge—except I couldn't play guitar. I still can't. I was such a lousy guitar player that one day they broke it to me that maybe I should sing instead. I had tried before, but I had no voice at all. I remember the day I found I could sing. I said, 'Oh, that's how you do it. When The Edge's guitar playing improved, Bono was relegated mostly to the microphone, although he occasionally still plays rhythm guitar and harmonica. As of 2006, Bono has taken piano lessons from his children's piano teacher as a means to improve his songwriting.
In 2003, Bono received the Legion of Honour from the French government, and the MusiCares Person of the Year award. The following year he was awarded the Pablo Neruda International Presidential Medal of Honour from the Government of Chile. Time included Bono on its annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in 2004 and 2006. In 2005, the magazine named him, Bill and Melinda Gates the Persons of the Year. Also in 2005, he received the Portuguese Order of Liberty for his humanitarian work. That year Bono was also among the first three recipients of the TED Prize, which grants each winner a "wish to change the world". Bono made three wishes, the first two related to the One Campaign and the third that every hospital, health clinic, and school in Ethiopia could be connected to the Internet. TED rejected the third wish as being a sub-optimal way for TED to help Africa and instead organised a TED conference in Arusha, Tanzania. Bono attended the conference, which was held in June 2007.
