Bono and His Donations

[gherman]

I appologize if this is not the place to post.

I got into a big tiff on youtube the other day that was a U2 fan and today hates U2 esp Bono. He goes on and on about Bono being a hypocrite and his life style, his charity work being fake, and he has never donated a dime to charity himself. Do any of you know if he has or how much he has?

 

[popacrobat]

I doubt we'll ever know the amount. If it were made public then it's sort of like, "hey look at this douchebag showing off with how much money he donated."

it's kind of damned if you do and damned if you don't. if somebody has their head that far up their ass to think that it's all a bunch of fake work, you probably won't convince the person even if you had irrefutable evidence that Bono shits gold and antiviral drugs and is currently constructing a Utopian society off the coast of Africa with his own hands. they'd tell you it's just a publicity stunt.

 

[gherman]

I doubt we'll ever know the amount. If it were made public then it's sort of like, "hey look at this douchebag showing off with how much money he donated."

it's kind of damned if you do and damned if you don't. if somebody has their head that far up their ass to think that it's all a bunch of fake work, you probably won't convince the person even if you had irrefutable evidence that Bono shits gold and antiviral drugs and is currently constructing a Utopian society off the coast of Africa with his own hands. they'd tell you it's just a publicity stunt.

Yup, I got into it with him about the fact people would take more shots at him about the donations if he made them public. Its just sad to me to see someone who loved the band and now see him sooooooo angry about shit he reads on line about him. I mean he just hates Bono with passion now. Just sad.

 

[BVS]

Why did you even bother?

You can't prove this either way. He/she can't prove he's never donated, and for the most part there is no way to prove how much he has.

U2 has made public a few of their donations, but most have remained quiet.

I have to wonder about folks that make every donation public...

 

[gherman]

Why did you even bother?

You can't prove this either way. He/she can't prove he's never donated, and for the most part there is no way to prove how much he has.

U2 has made public a few of their donations, but most have remained quiet.

I have to wonder about folks that make every donation public...

I know, I shouldn't have...

You know, once you start itts hard to stop because your anger gets the best of you.

 

[MikeyJB]

Regardless of whether or not Bono donates to charity I guarantee his efforts are worth far more and are far more substantial than your friend's.

 

[U2girl]

I remember reading each member of the band and McGuiness donating to charity during Vertigo tour (I think a few million euros each). U2 gave a substantial donation to Amnesty International around the time of Conspiracy of hope tour.
Bono donated one of his guitars, and a motorcycle once owned by Michael Hutchence. The current tour's Red Zone tickets donate money to charity.

Perhaps the biggest "donation" are the millions of dollars going to Africa due to his involvement since 1998.

 

[last unicorn]

The internet is full of people who hate Bono with passion. Let the haters hate, you won't change their mind. No one knows about how much he and/or the rest of the band donates to charity. I don't want him to be forced to run around and talk about donations in public. It would, again, just result in more critisicm. We know they donate 100% of the Red Zone tickets and there have been many occassions where U2 and/or Bono donated money to various charities or stuff for charity auctions. I think as fans we should just have enough trust in them, and Bono's campaigning and the many many things he has done in this field also speak for themselves.

 

[jphelmet]

i would bet its a significantly higher percentage than any of the people calling him out. the same could be said for the time he spends on various causes.

just think how much money he has lost for himself, and U2 with all the delays he causes to their albums running around the meeting with world leaders.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

Don't sink down to their level by arguing with them on YouTube, there's no point.

Though I find it hard to believe that all of this is "fake". Conspiracy theory much?

 

[gherman]

Don't sink down to their level by arguing with them on YouTube, there's no point.

Though I find it hard to believe that all of this is "fake". Conspiracy theory much?

All thi guy talked about is how Bono is a phony shit. Its just driving me nutts listening to this guy who thinks he's the smarted fucker on the planet but only listens to some of these bs gosip news site. AAAHHHHHHHh

 

[beachball]

All thi guy talked about is how Bono is a phony shit. Its just driving me nutts listening to this guy who thinks he's the smarted fucker on the planet but only listens to some of these bs gosip news site. AAAHHHHHHHh

If he thinks that Bono is about charity then he is not the smartest fucker on the planet. This is about politics.

If he watched Live8 there was a big banner over the stage reading "don't send us money" or something like that.

The people who think it's about charity must be deaf and blind.

Argue with people you meet who are sane, but ignore those people on youtube. They just like to provoke you.

 

[Drowningman]

Bono lendng his face, his voice, his time to charities should also count as signinficant contribution. without his personal involvment some of these organizations would never get the recognition and publicity.

Plus, as someone mentioned earlier, if he went about declaring how much he donated to a charity, that would make him look more like a publicity hungry celebrity more than anything.

 

[Marien]

It's Bono's choice to say how much he donates or not to say it, he has clearly chosen to keep that private, we can only respect his decision and if someone chooses to hate him for spending time and efforts trying to make the lives of those who have nothing better, that's up to that person as well, we can't do anything. I know it's sad.

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

YouTube arguments.... Never get involved in those. I definitely understand your frustration, but you're not likely to find much intelligent debate in the comment sections of that site.

I honestly don't care to know how much Bono or U2 have donated to various causes. I know they have, and I trust they continue to do so, and their passion for their various causes seems sincere enough to me, so that's all I need to know. And because they help out and give back, I don't begrudge them the nice lives they have. You can get yourself some nice luxuries all you like if you're able to afford them, just so long as you remember to help those less fortunate along the way.

And if U2 or Bono didn't share any money or speak up for various issues, people would be whining and complaining about that, too, that they have all that power and aren't putting it to good use (even though we supposedly hate it when celebrities get involved, right?). Like stated, they can't win either way, so let the uninformed continue to be so and let the band do what they want to do and the supporters continue to support, and life goes on as usual .

Angela

 

[Morgoth321]

I'm confident that Bono has privately / quietly donated more to charities than anyone can imagine. That's set entirely apart from the huge amounts of time and effort he's also given over the years to lobby and fundraise for causes in public. I think he's a great man in every sense of the word, but I guess we'll never know just how great.

 

[partygirl43]

Bono's work goes far beyond donating money, I'm sure he does his fair share of both.

When people like to bitch about his activisim I like remind those bitching that Bono, Glen Hansard and his family busked on Christmas Eve to raise money for the homeless in Dublin before going to mass. Ask that person that they did on Christmas Eve, probably drank too much Chardonnay whilst wrapping presents.

 

[secretly alone]

I've gotten into YouTube arguements over this sort of thing before...it's not worth it. All I learned was that there are really nasty and unintelligent people out there

If people want to be ignorant, let them. That's their problem. I just chose not to agknowledge them. I don't understand what exactly it is that make people hate Bono so much, and I probably never will.

I would never want to know just how much they have donated or anything...that's their personal business.

 

[david]

You should just tell your friend you have no idea because you're not Bono's personal accountant.

 

[corianderstem]

I honestly don't understand how anyone bothers to read any Youtube comments, ever.

 

[bonocomet]

I keep a U2 related account there that has a lot of subscribers so I'm "forced" (by choice ) to read at least the ones on my account. I don't worry about most of it and people can say whatever they want but I delete anything that's extremely ugly (not about U2, but usually trolling that is racial or whatever.) Maybe I'm wasting my time, but mostly people are pretty tame surprisingly, but yeah I've seen worse!

 

[neilm]

I appologize if this is not the place to post.

I got into a big tiff on youtube the other day that was a U2 fan and today hates U2 esp Bono. He goes on and on about Bono being a hypocrite and his life style, his charity work being fake, and he has never donated a dime to charity himself. Do any of you know if he has or how much he has?

Ok...without giving too much away (pun intended), I know a direct member of Bono's family, very well, who lives and works on this side of the pond. For obvious reasons he very rarely tells anyone this and it took him a while to divulge that information to me as I've never made it a secret that U2 have been my favorite band since I was 11 years old and that Bono is my all time musical idol.

He's told me lots of Bono stories, from boy to man, most of which are not public knowledge (and that I shouldn't really share here either sorry) and I've been shown photographs etc. Some of the stories are not exactly complimentary either. When I met Bono he was great to me so I guess sometimes it is better to just know the public figure and not the private person...although of course sometimes family opinions can be a little more harsh.

One of the things I've been told though is that he does actually put his money where his mouth is when it comes to working for and donating to charities. How much, nobody knows, but he does do it.

 

[corianderstem]

I'd say it's definitely more likely for your family to see you in the warts-and-all light, so it wouldn't surprise me to hear that there are "less than complimentary stories" coming from a family member.

 

[neilm]

I just always remember that he knows a different person to the one I look up to (Rock Star Bono) and to be fair not all of his stories are negative.

He told me who he was related to, which took me all of a few minutes to believe him because he whipped out the photos and then spent ages telling me stories. Then he made me promise not to bug him for more stories, so I don't. He's a good guy, especially since he told me that I might be able to accompany him in the friends and family VIP area at one of the shows I'm attending if I promise not to act like a starstruck school girl

 

[corianderstem]

That's pretty damned awesome.

 

[Diemen]

gherman, your first mistake was assuming that youtube commenters can be reasoned with.

 

[corianderstem]

I'd say his first mistake was reading YouTube comments.

 

[Diemen]

Good point.

 

[MikeyJB]

Youtube arguments are pointless. Most of the time it escalates to you having to try and reason with people that Hitler was a bad man. Best not to bother.

 

[11o´clock]

Yes, it´s really sad to read all of those messages against Bono, only because he want to help. They think that he made because of interest and it´s not like that! , and they also judge him ´cause he´s appeared in pics with presidents ¬¬
Fortunately, there´re some/many people who support and love him no matter what he does.