Cliff Notes – U2’s Bono reveals he lived on airline food at 14 after death of his mother
- Bono disclosed that after his mother’s sudden death, he and his family relied on instant mashed potatoes and surplus airline meals for sustenance.
- The U2 frontman described how his relationship with food shifted to viewing it merely as fuel, lacking any enjoyment.
- He recounted the struggle of coping with loss, often eating canned goods and cheap fizzy drinks before the airline food became a staple in their diet.
U2’s Bono reveals he lived on airline food at 14 after death of his mother
Bono has opened up about his childhood (Picture: Stephane Cardinale – Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images)
Bono has revealed that he lived off instant mashed potatoes and airline food after his mother’s death.
The 65-year-old Irish singer was just 14 when his mother died of a sudden aneurysm while attending her father’s funeral.
The tragic event took place in 1974, and Bono revealed that his family struggled domestically after her sudden death.
The U2 frontman told Ruthie Rogers – the owner of the London restaurant The River Cafe – on Ruthie’s Table 4 podcast: ‘My relationship with food changed, I just saw it as fuel as something to get done, I took no pleasure in it.
‘Do you know what Cadbury’s Smash is?’ He then asked if he could read from his book.
He detailed that he, his brother, and father struggled to cope without their mother, but coped by eating pre-made airline dinners made available because Norman worked at Dublin airport.
‘He [Norman] had talked the company into allowing him to bring home surplus airline food, prepared for airline passengers. The meals were sometimes still warm when he carried them in their tinned boxes into our kitchen,’ Bono read.
He described the dishes, such as gammon steak with pineapple and lasagna, ‘exotic,’ but had ‘an aftertaste of tin’, which is what they ate routinely for at least six months.
The singer came to fame with the band U2 (Picture: Ilpo Musto/Shutterstock)
The singer has continued to perform in his later life (Picture: AP)
The singer also read what they would do before the airline food came into play, mostly eating out of cans.
‘Most days 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 continued to read from the book: ‘We used to buy a cheap fizzy drink called Cadet Orange because it had enough sugar to keep you going, but was so foul you wouldn’t want anything else down your throat for hours.
‘We drank it after I would spend my food money on things far more important, like Alice Cooper’s 45 Hello Hooray.’
The Irish musician’s real name is Paul Hewson (Picture: Kevin Winter/Getty Images for NARAS)
Bono was a founding member of the Irish rock band, which formed in 1976 while they were attending Mount Temple Comprehensive School in Dublin.
Across nearly five decades, 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.
As a teenager, Bono 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.
At school, Alison briefly dated The Edge, which Bono joked was still a sore subject between them.