Whoops! (Picture: Getty)
Bono has recalled his eventful experience of drinking cocktails with Barack Obama at the White House, and it’s safe to say taking a kip in the Lincoln Bedroom wasn’t how he planned it to go.
The Irish singer-songwriter and U2 frontman opened up about his experience of falling asleep in the US president’s official residence in a new interview, while promoting his new memoir Surrender: 40 Songs.
Explaining that he ‘doesn’t call it drunk’ as he has an allergy to salicylates, which are found in red wine, pizza, tomato sauce and aspirin, among other things, the 62-year-old revealed that his head ‘will swell up like a balloon and pop or I fall asleep anywhere’.
Bono listed the ‘awkward spots’ where he’s fallen asleep, which include the lighting desk of Sonic Youth, the street, on car bonnets and at the White House, where they were ‘very, very good about it actually’.
Bono went to the White House with his wife of 30 years, Ali Hewson, and shared that the 44th president of the United States, Barack Obama, enjoys mixing cocktails but is ‘very measured’ and avoids having too many.
‘I had them and the wine and the allergy and I ended up slipping out for a kip and the president said to Ali after about 10 minutes, “Where’s Bono gone?”,’ he told Zoe Ball on her BBC Radio 2 breakfast show.
The Irish rocker explained he was dealing with an allergy (Picture: Matt Crossick/PA)
Bono and Obama, pictured together at a World AIDS Day event in 2011, enjoy a friendship (Picture: Roger L. Wollenberg-Pool/Getty Images)
‘She said, “He’s just gone for a sleep.” He said, “I’m sorry?”’
The Irish singer-songwriter then explained that his wife had told the president that he had to ‘go for these sleeps’ and that he shouldn’t ‘worry a thing about him’ and she would go and track him down.
Bono continued: ‘He goes, “No, no, no.” And he comes with her and [is saying] where can he be…? I know, he was asking me about the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln’s.’
‘And there I was in Lincoln’s bedroom, asleep, fallen asleep in the bosom of Abraham himself.’
Former First Lady Laura Bush in the newly refurbished Lincoln bedroom of the White House in 2007 (Picture: Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
The rocker revealed that Obama just woke him up and ‘laughed his head off’.
‘But he does tell people that he drinks me under the table, he doesn’t believe the allergy thing,’ he added. ‘He does make strong cocktails, though, just saying.’
Bono, who is also known for his activism and philanthropic work, particularly in poverty-stricken parts of Africa, spoke further about his personal experience with the Obama family during his visit to the White House.
He called the leader of America from 2009 until 2017 ‘the most extraordinary man and they’re the most extraordinary family’.
Bono performed with U2 at Obama’s inauguration in January 2009 (Picture: Kevin Mazur/WireImage)
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He also said it was a ‘very special moment’ to be there as the Obamas ‘didn’t have a lot of people round’ because they treated the White House as a family house.
Barack and his wife Michelle share two daughter, Sasha and Malia, who are now aged 21 and 24, respectively.
Ball’s full interview with Bono will air on the BBC Radio 2 Breakfast show on November 1, with an extended version available on BBC Sounds now.
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He said that Obama ‘laughed his head off’ when he found him.
