Bono’s 4 Children: Everything to Know

Bono may be best known for his strong vocals and prominent activism, but to his kids, the U2 frontman is known as “Dad.”

The singer, whose real name is Paul David Hewson, shares four children with his wife, Ali Hewson.

Bono and Hewson met in school at the age of 12. Nearly 10 years later, in 1982, the pair got married. They went on to welcome daughters Jordan, 35, and Eve, 33, as well as sons Elijah, 25, and John, 23.

“I’m never away from Ali and the kids for more than three weeks,” he said in an interview with Oprah. Praising his wife, Bono went on to say, “I think the family is as strong as it is because of my wife, Ali. She is just really so cool.”

While Bono was initially hesitant about having kids and unsure how he could make parenthood fit into his rockstar lifestyle, a conversation with Hewson assured him it was possible.

“I was not sure I could be so ambidextrous as to be band leader and father. I was frightened of such responsibilities and of blowing them,” Bono writes in his memoir, Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story. “As Ali and I walked back from Quincy [Jones]’s one night, an invisible switch got flicked. We were talking about kids and how the conventional life is not the only route to parenting, how people who live in their imagination can also live in the real world of parent-teacher meetings, school drops, and being there for birthdays. A month later and Ali was pregnant.”

Here is everything to know about Bono’s four children.

Jordan Hewson, 35

Bono became a dad for the first time the day he turned 29. His eldest daughter, Jordan Joy Hewson, was born on May 10, 1989, in Dublin.

In reference to their shared birthday, Bono called Jordan “the greatest gift I could ever get” in an interview for HuffPost’s “Talk to Me” series.

During the same interview, Jordan asked her famous father whether or not having kids as a traveling rock star was difficult. “I wasn’t the kind of person who’d be ready for family and settling down,” he said, before adding, “but you probably saved my life.”

Jordan grew up in Ireland with her parents and three siblings. She then went to Columbia University, where she received an undergraduate degree in political science. Later, she earned a master’s degree in creative writing from the same university.

In 2016, she founded Speakable, a tech company aimed at promoting social activism.

“My dad is a good resource, but I try to keep him away from the company as much as possible,” she said in an interview with Fortune. “Obviously, I grew up with a lot of opportunity and connections,” she continued, saying, “but ultimately, that will only get you in the door once with a person.”

In 2019, she landed a spot on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list thanks to her company’s first product, an action button that allows readers to donate, tweet, or sign a petition after reading an article.

Eve Hewson, 33

Bono’s second daughter was born on July 7, 1991, in Dublin. Although she goes by Eve, her full name is Memphis Eve Sunny Day Iris Hewson. “It’s very embarrassing,” she said while appearing on The Kelly Clarkson Show. “My parents were hippies.”

Despite having a famous father, Eve has said her childhood was relatively normal. “The one thing I think prepared me for the career I have now was being able to go to the school down the road, to just live a Dublin life,” she said in an interview with the Irish Times.

She continued, “And then we would go away to be with dad on tour and we’d have this extraordinary experience. We were able to appreciate both and know that the special, magical time we had with dad wasn’t normal life.”

However, being Bono’s daughter had some perks. During an interview with This Morning, she shared that she and her sister, Jordan, once stole their dad’s address book and prank-called Justin Timberlake. “It was one of the best moments of my life,” she said.

Eve studied acting at New York University and landed her first major role in the 2011 film, This Must Be The Place. Since then, she’s acted in movies such as Enough Said, Bridge of Spies and Behind Her Eyes. Most recently, she has appeared on the Apple TV series, Bad Sisters.

Speaking about her dad, the actress jokingly compared him to a “crazy stage mother,” telling the Irish Mirror, “Whenever we’re out and about, he’s always introducing me and talking about me, and he gives my full movie credits to whoever were having dinner with.”

Initially, though, he wasn’t thrilled with her decision to pursue acting. “My dad would have loved for us all to become architects,” she told the Irish Times.

When it comes to the ongoing “nepo baby” conversation in Hollywood sparked by a 2022 New York magazine cover story, Hewson has no problem poking fun of herself. “Actually pretty devastated i’m not featured in the nepo baby article like haven’t they seen my hit show Bad Sisters??? The NERVE,” she wrote on Twitter in December 2022.

In another tweet in the thread, the actress wrote: “2023 Goals: be successful enough to get recognised as a nepo baby.”

Elijah Hewson, 25

Bono’s first son was born on Aug. 17, 1999, in Dublin. Elijah has followed in his father’s footsteps, pursuing a career in music as the frontman of Irish rock band Inhaler. After forming the group with his classmates, Elijah and the band released their first album It Won’t Always Be Like This, which debuted No. 1 on the U.K. charts. The achievement marked the first time an Irish band debuted on the charts in 13 years.

Their success has brought them across the pond to North America, where they toured in 2022, including a stop at Chicago’s infamous music festival Lollapalooza. Speaking to the Chicago Sun-Times, Elijah shared that while he didn’t expect to go down the same path as his father, he’s been enjoying the journey. He added that one of the songs the band was working on even started to sound similar to a U2 hit.

“It’s funny, you always want to do the opposite of what your parents do. I don’t know why that hasn’t applied to me,” he said.

While Elijah comes from a famous family, he still gets starstruck. He told the Chicago Sun-Times that when Inhaler was performing at Lollapalooza, he noticed iconic rock band Metallica watching and was awestruck.

“The craziest thing that happened to us that day was I looked over to the side of the stage during our set and members of Metallica were watching us. That was pretty wild,” he said. “I don’t think that [feeling] ever really leaves.”

Though Elijah doesn’t shy away from comments noting that the band sounds like U2, he stresses that they made it a point to “go out and do it by ourselves,” as he told Guitar World.

“We toured the toilets of Ireland and the UK for a long time before we even got management,” he said. “We thought that was really important.”

John Hewson, 23

Bono’s youngest child, John Hewson, was born on May 21, 2001, in Dublin. John has largely kept out of the limelight, and while he is on Instagram, his account is private. His siblings also refrain from posting photos of him.

In his memoir Surrender, Bono shared his anxieties about becoming a father, and his hopes that he would have a better relationship with his kids than he had with his own father. He noted how he wasn’t “proud” of the times he struggled and lost his temper, which he said his daughters experienced more than his sons.

“Was that going back to my father and my relationship with him?” he wrote in Surrender. “I was conscious that I did not want the kind of relationship with my kids that I’d had with my father and maybe it was the silliness that saved me.”

He continued, “These were happy years in our family and dropping the kids off at [school] before heading out to walk Killiney Hill or the beach with Ali was about as good a way to start the day as I could imagine.”