Bono addresses ‘sore' rumours of romance between his wife and U2 bandmate

Metro

26-05-2025

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Bono has addressed rumours of a romance between his wife and bandmate.
The U2 frontman – born Paul David Hewson – was a founding member of the Irish rock band, which formed in 1976 while they were attending Mount Temple Comprehensive School in Dublin.
As a teenager he began dating his future wife, Alison Stewart, who was also in the same year as his bandmate David Howell Evans, best known as The Edge. They also went to school with Larry Mullen Jr., the band's drummer.
Across the past 49 years, U2 have released 15 studio albums and are one of the world's best-selling music artists, having sold an estimated 150–170 million records worldwide. They've also won 22 Grammys, eight Brit Awards and two Golden Globe Awards.
But decades on, Bono has joked about suggestions his wife, 63, whom he married in 1982 and shares four children with, had a fling with The Edge.
In the upcoming documentary, Bono: Stories of Surrender, he suggests his wife of 42 years and his bandmate were 'an item'.
When interviewed on The Project about his comment on Sunday, he joked it was still a 'sore subject'.
'They were the two cleverest in their year,' he said of Ali and David, who were in the year below him.
'She did seem to be taking an interest in his guitar playing and, as hard as I might practice, I just knew I couldn't touch this guy.
'So, I had to become, you know, the class clown.'
He then added: 'They're still really close – and they still talk about me behind my back.
'They say it's out of concern,' he added with a laugh.
Bono went on to say there were certain people that he doesn't need to 'worry about' in his life because they are 'so consistent' and 'there' for him.
'Edge is one, Ali is another,' he said.
Praising his wife, Bono said that her support and belief in him made him the musician he was today.
'If I believed in myself now, I probably wouldn't be sitting here. I'm really one quarter of an artist without Edge, Adam and Larry. I'm half of a person without Ali,' he added.
The Edge married his high school girlfriend, Aislinn O'Sullivan in 1983, with the couple going on to have three daughters.
They separated in 1990, with the guitarist then dating American professional dancer Morleigh Steinberg in 1993.
They have two children together and were married in 2002.
Bono: Stories of Surrender documents a 2023 performance by Bono at the Beacon Theatre in New York City during his one-man stage show Stories of Surrender: An Evening of Words, Music and Some Mischief…, which was done to promote his 2022 memoir Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story.
The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last week and received a seven-minute standing ovation.
Bono and Ali, an activist and businesswoman, share children Jordan, 36, Eve, 33, Elijah, 25, and John, 22.
In 2022 Bono described his now 43-year marriage as a 'relay race'.
Speaking to The Sunday Times Magazine, he revealed that Ali 'wanted to jump' after he became less present in their home life but his love for her helped overcome the 'dark waters' of their relationship. More Trending
'It's not like our love was absent any dark undercurrents or briny water, [but] we got each other through those bits where it was hard to see where we were. Ali calls it 'the work of love'. I wish she wouldn't use the word 'work' because I have a feeling there's an adjective, ''hard', that's inferred…
'If one of us got lost the other was going to get us back, that's kind of been the way it's been for us. I think in relationships somebody is in charge at some point, but you swap. It's a relay race.
'The significant thing about Ali was she was never going to be 'her indoors'. She was never going to be just my girlfriend, and she was never going to be just my wife. So, if I was home I'd better be present. And in the Eighties at some point, I was home, but I wasn't present. And that's when I think she wanted to jump.'
Bono: Stories of Surrender is streaming from Friday on Apple TV Plus.
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