I'm sorry guys, but we had a discussion on that in PLEBA last summer when it allegedly happened, and we determined it to be bullshit. Here's why:
First, it came from The Sun, which is known to be a tabloid, sensationalistic, and inaccurate. They are the same ones that printed the famous pic of "Bono, Ali and Baby John" in 2001, when if you see the pic, the "Bono" is over 6 feet tall and dressed a la Sweetest Thing (this at a time when Bono was on the Elevation tour and had much longer hair) The "Ali" had blonde hair and looked NOTHING like her, and worst of all, "Baby John" was a girl, in pink ruffles! Their clothes and the baby stroller looked very cheap, "Bono" was in a thin, short vinyl jacket. Oh man, if you could see the pic you'd laugh your ass off. I must find it.
We saw the story in The Sun on PLEBA. The pic of the 'hat' that Bono could not live without was The Sweetest Thing hat (man they are hung up on that look!) which Bono had not worn since 1998. The story claimed Bono refused to go on without this hat and that was the basis for the first class story. But when you see the pics from the event (I forgot which one, but we have pics) it was a GREEN ARMY CAP and not a fucking fedora, and certainly not the one in the pic they showed. So, it was all bullshit, the elaborate hoax of a tabloid writer with a slow news week and a weird imagination. ALL the actual evidence points to it being crap. I'm relieved, really, I'd hate to think Bono would really do that.