Bono: 'I survived on tinned beans after my mother died'

Yahoo

16-07-2025

Bono has revealed he survived on tinned beans and instant mash after his mother died when he was 14.
The U2 frontman discussed his limited diet during a new interview with Ruth Rogers, owner of celebrated London restaurant The River Café, for her Apple podcast Ruthie's Table 4.
Bono's mother Iris Hewson died aged 48 after an aneurysm and the star admitted mealtimes were an afterthought for him during his teenage years.
"After my mother died, I would usually return home with a tin of meat, a tin of beans and a packet of Cadbury's Smash (instant mashed potato)," he told Ruth. "Thinking back to being a teenager, food was just fuel."
Rather than spend money on healthy food, Bono preferred to splurge on "things far more important" like new music, as he remembered saving up to buy Alice Cooper's Hello Hooray record.
Elsewhere in the interview, the 65-year-old rocker revealed his brother Norman had worked at an airport near their family home in Dublin, and would often bring back surplus food from the airline.
"This was highly exotic fare," he recalled with a smile. "'Gammon steak and pineapple, an Italian dish called lasagne that we'd never heard of or one where rice was no longer a milk pudding but a savoury experience with peas."
Bono went on to tell Ruth that he didn't have many memories of his mother, and admitted the family rarely mentioned her once she had passed away.
"After my mother died, we just didn't speak her name. So it's hard when you do that to recall these things," he added. "We certainly had kitchen table dramas, three men arguing a lot because the woman of the house was gone."