Bono, U2 front man, activist and hat lover, scored one for the team when a Dublin judge ordered that it doesn’t matter if he was in his undies at the time, you just don’t come between an Irishman and his hat. Bono’s next activist event: getting Donald Duck his pants back.*
Cashman, author of Inside the Zoo With U2: My Life With the World’s Biggest Band) an unpopular missive among the band that was the subject), claims the hat was a gift from Bono she had received after a 1987 Joshua Tree concert in Arizona.
Cashman regaled the court with a tale of Bono running around backstage in nothing but his skivvies and cowboy hat. She said he gave her the hat and the earrings that night.
“Bono was running around offstage in his underpants with his hat on,” she told the court. “To me it symbolized all I had achieved in my work, working on this amazing tour.”
Bono was incensed by the charges that he had done any such thing and sued the woman, who had put up the items for auction at Christie’s in 2002.
Bono said the hat was an icon of the band and that giving the hat away “would be like the Edge giving away his guitar. It just wouldn’t happen.”
Justice Matthew Deery found Bono’s story more believable.
“The weight of evidence is entirely against the defendant’s version of events,” Deery ruled. “Bearing in mind all the evidence, it is highly unlikely that the items were given in this way.”
In addition to the clothing items, the judge ruled that Cashman unhand 200 photos he said violated her confidentiality agreement.
He then scolded her by stating that crazy stories about rock stars’ zany backstage shenanigans, including whoppers about them being trousers down in front of young females, were the worst type of malicious slander. That could never happen, he asserted, and she should be ashamed of herself. **
*The last bit about Donald Duck is a lie and should not be believed by anyone, especially those who actually do fight to fully clothe the ill-tempered bird, God help them.
**All claims in the final paragraph are untrue. But they are funny.
