Bono defends his decision to accept Medal of Freedom from Joe Biden

RTÉ News​

24-05-2025

U2 frontman Bono has spoken out against criticism of his decision to accept the Medal of Freedom from then-US President Joe Biden earlier this year.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio 1's Brendan O'Connor Show on Saturday morning, he said that he accepted the medal on behalf of those who couldn't.
"Being a conscientious objector with somebody else's conscience is quite a stretch," he said.
"I've worked with Joe Biden for 25 years. I've worked with him when he was in the Senate on Drop the Debt. I've worked with him on universal access to antiretroviral drugs, on increasing aid flows. This is a man who I have deep respect for and a real relationship with.
"There are other aspects to that which are just inaccurate and people just not understanding. These are complex affairs and I should be flattered. I am grateful that people expect such a lot of me, but I've been doing this for 25 years. And anyone who thinks that I'm not shocked and appalled by what's going on in Gaza and to the children of Gaza . . , "
The US Presidential Medal of Freedom was formally given to the singer last January.
Mr Biden presented the highest American civilian honour to Bono, real name Paul David Hewson, at the White House along with a total of 19 people from across politics, sports, entertainment and other fields.
The awards are given for "exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavours".
Bono added that "competitive empathy" was much more prevalent now than ever.
"It's strange, this competitive empathy that's going around. 'I feel this wound more than you,' and 'my emergency is more important than your emergency'. Outrage," he said.
"When I was younger, I had a lot of rage. An outrage, in some respects, was enough to write a certain kind of song. But as I got older, I demanded more of myself.
"I looked towards outcomes. And so, I became that most boring of all things, a single-issue protagonist fighting with, working with both sides," he added.
Having turned 65 two weeks ago, Bono says he is taking a step back from activism.
"It might be bewildering, but I was trying not to speak about stuff that I didn't really understand, and even my understanding of development issues has, I would say, decreased," he said.
"The governance of it, the in-depth understanding of the subject that you need to have, meetings where you can sit across from lawmakers and really talk in depth, is one that I am not sure I'm capable of whilst being in U2 at the level that that now demands.
"I'm also the wrong sex, perhaps. Actually, more importantly, I'm the wrong ethnicity. It would be just Africans doing this for themselves now.
"There's an extraordinary woman, Ndidi (Okonkwo Nwuneli) who has taken over the One campaign, and I'm backstage now," he added.
On Thursday night in London, U2 became the first ever Irish band to become recipients of the Ivor Novello Academy Fellowship in London.
Having published his autobiography, Surrender, in 2022, which then became a one-man stage show, Apple TV+ will air a new film entitled Bono: Stories of Surrender on 30 May.
Asked how the rest of the band felt about him singing U2 songs without them during the theatre production and in the film, Bono said, "I dread their memoirs. I don't know. Edge has definitely seen the film. He thought my head looked even bigger on the screen, if that was possible. Larry's more a Western man.
"I don't think Larry believes anything I do outside of U2 exists and that's the way it should be. Adam, yeah, he was good but all of this is really the absence of a new U2 album and everybody knows that and it is extraordinary to have Apple pay for this and get my little family opera on record.
"But I understand. It's the band who gave me permission to sell my wares in other ways, whether it's activism or telling my story but I thought it would help with them because when you get to a certain level of recognition, inevitably you turn into a bit of a caricature and that doesn't suit U2 either so I wanted to explain to people the ordinariness behind all this extraordinary success that U2's had.
"I wanted to let people in and take off the armour."
The first time the singer performed his one-man show was at the Olympia theatre in Dublin in late 2022, and asked did he have any first-night nerves, Bono said, "My mother's only remaining sister, Olive, was there so that mattered a lot.
"We were having drinks afterwards and only in a country like Ireland would the Taoiseach come up and say, `do you want anything up at the bar, there?'"
"I said, `I'll have a pint' and my Aunty Olive said, `G&T, please', and he went around the table and took the orders and I said, `Olive, that's the Taoiseach there - Leo Varadkar 'and she said `oh isn't that great! Will he remember all the orders?'
Bono added, "On that first night, I didn't want to blow it; I didn't want to screw it up and of course there is some level of narcissism involved in thinking that people might be interested in your story."