Bono Reveals U2 Death Threats In New Memoir
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Bono’s memoir “Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story” comes out November 1st and in it he discusses the death threats U2 has received over the years.
In the book Gerry Adams, the former Sinn Fein leader, didn’t care for the band’s pro-peace beliefs, with Bono writing “U2’s opposition to paramilitaries (of all kinds) had cost the IRA valuable fundraising in the US.” Bono says he was warned that his wife Ali Stewart may have been a bigger target than he was himself, noting, “I still take that badly.”
He also writes about how gangsters in Ireland wanted to kidnap his family, noting a “famous gangland leader in Dublin 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.”
And he also writes that after “Pride” came out he was warned not to sing the verse about Martin Luther King’s assassination at an Arizona concert, with far right groups telling him he “would not make it to the end of the song.” But Bono says he “got all messianic on myself” and sang it anyway, noting, “I then realized the gravity of the situation and I did close my eyes. It was a slim possibility but just in case.”
When the song ended he was okay but later realized his bandmate made what could have been a big sacrifice for him. “I looked up and I could not see the crowd because [bass player] Adam Clayton was standing in front of me,” he writes, “and he had been there for the entire verse.”
Source: NME
