Bono has revealed that his 40-year marriage to wife Ali Hawson has been “like a relay race”, while detailing the moment their relationship came close to the breaking point.
The 62-year-old U2 frontman, who described his forthcoming memoir as a ‘love letter’ to his wife, said The Sunday Times Magazine that at one point in the 1980s, Ali ‘wanted to jump out’ of their union after he was less present during their home life.
Bono added that their love for Ali has helped them get through the ‘dark waters’ of their relationship, and they were always able to ‘pull each other out’ during the tough times.
Together: Bono has revealed that his 40-year marriage to wife Ali has been “like a relay race”, while detailing the moment their marriage came close to breaking point
Speaking ahead of the release of his memoir Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story, Bono offered rare insight into his marriage to Ali.
He explained: ‘It’s not like our love is absent from dark undercurrents or salt water, [but] we helped each other through those times when it was hard to see where we were. Ali calls it “the labor of love.” I wish he didn’t use the word ‘work’ because I have a feeling there is an adjective, ‘difficult’, that is inferred…
‘If one of us got lost, the other was going to get us back, that’s how it has been for us. I think in relationships someone is in charge at some point, but you trade. It’s a relay race.
Hard time: The U2 frontman revealed Ali “wanted to jump” out of their union after he was less present during their home life during the 1980s (pictured 1991)
Bono detailed that one of the challenging times during his marriage to Ali came in the 1980s, when he had become ‘less present’ at home due to his busy touring schedule.
He added, “The significant thing about Ali is that she was never going to be ‘her inside,’” he says. ‘She was never going to be just my girlfriend and she was never going to be just my wife. So if she was home, it would be better if she was 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.
Despite the challenges, Bono and Ali’s marriage is now stronger than ever, and they are the proud parents of four children, Jordan, 33, Eve, 31, Elijah, 23, and John, 21.
Solidarity: Bono added that their love for Ali has seen them through the ‘dark waters’ of their relationship, and that they were always able to ‘pull each other out’ during difficult times.
In his memoir, Bono also reflects on his relationship with his U2 bandmates, adding that after decades performing together, there were times when they ‘fell out of love’ for each other.
In an excerpt from his memoirs, published by SunThe Beautiful Day frontman wrote: “We break up all the time, after tours or albums where we’ve had to stretch ourselves a bit too far…
“We have never criticized each other in public, but it is not a criticism to say that sometimes we have run out of love. Happens. The well of friendship can run dry in a family, a marriage, a community, a gang.
‘A good strategy for me is to continually go back to the source. Dropping my bucket into the well in hopes of refilling it.
It comes after Bono confessed he had a “combative relationship” with his late father Brendan Hewson while appearing on Friday’s The Graham Norton Show.
Family: Despite the challenges, Bono and Ali’s marriage is now stronger than ever, and they are the proud parents of four children (pictured with daughters Eve and Jordan in 2016)
He had previously revealed that Brendan had an affair with his aunt Barbara and subsequently has a cousin, who is actually his half-brother.
While promoting his new memoir Surrender, the U2 star said of his father, who died of cancer in 2001: “We had a combative relationship and I wanted to impress him, so I took him to Texas to see me at a concert.”
‘Then he came in and his eyes were all red and I thought, ‘My God, my father is going to compliment me and I swallowed deeply.’
‘He held out his hand and said, ‘You’re very professional.’ That meant the world to him, and it was the greatest compliment from him.”
Insight: In his memoir, Bono also reflects on his relationship with his U2 bandmates, including times when they “fell out of love” for each other.
last week bonus revealed that one of his cousins is actually his half brother.
The shocking revelation comes four months after the rocker first revealed he had a brother, whose origin had been kept a family secret for decades.
Appearing on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs in June, Bono revealed that his half-brother, whom he did not name at the time, was born after an affair in the 1960s between their father Bob and a ‘beautiful woman’.
Now he has revealed that this woman was his Aunt Barbara and that her son is Scott Rankin, a stock analyst and civil servant.
Disclosure: Comes after Bono confessed he had a “combative relationship” with his late father Brendan Hewson (pictured in 2000)
Bono’s mother, Iris, died in 1974, when the musician was 14 years old, never knowing of the infidelity.
Barbara, who still lives in Dublin, was married to Iris’s brother Jack, who died in 2020.
Exposure of the affair between Bob and Iris at the time in conservative Catholic Ireland would have had potentially devastating consequences, and it remained buried for decades.
And Bono, whose real name is Paul Hewson, only learned his father’s devastating secret in 2000, a year before Bob died of cancer.
Reveal: The shocking reveal comes four months after the rocker first revealed he had a brother, whose origin had been kept a family secret for decades (pictured in 1993)