Bono survived on instant mashed potato and leftover airline food during his teenage years
U2 rocker Bono survived on instant mashed potato and leftover airline food during his teenage years following the death of his mother Iris when he was 14.
Bono was so poor as a teenager that he lived off instant mashed potato and leftover airline food.
The U2 frontman was just 14 when his mother Iris died and explained that times were so tough that he had to survive on the surplus food his older brother Norman brought back from the airport where he worked.
Speaking on Ruthie's Table 4 podcast, Bono, 65, said: "After my mother died I would usually return home with a tin of meat, a tin of beans and a packet of Cadbury's Smash (instant mashed potato).
"Thinking back to being a teenager, food was just fuel."
The With or Without You rocker explained that he spent money for food on "far more important" things like records.
Bono – whose real name is Paul Hewson - said: "I would spend my food money on things far more important like Alice Cooper's Hello Hooray.
"The house was two miles away from the runway where my brother Norman worked for Aer Lingus. He had talked them into allowing him to bring home the surplus food from the airline. This was highly exotic fare.
"Gammon steak and pineapple, an Italian dish called lasagne that we'd never heard of or one where rice was no longer a milk pudding but a savoury experience with peas."
Bono described how he got to taste a vast array of delicious food once he found fame with U2.
He said: "We were blessed with the gift of getting a manager who loved food and wine as much as he did music. Record companies would give us per diems, which means they pay for you to stay in a hotel up in Manchester or wherever after we had played.
"But we wouldn't stay in the hotel and we would drive back and save up our per diems and use them in nice restaurants."
Meanwhile, Bono revealed that he once ate a meal meant for his dog as he craved meat when his wife Ali Hewson turned vegetarian.
The Irish singer recalled: "I recall coming home on the weekend and she was cooking. And I remember getting this beautiful smell of beef.
"I thought, 'Oh my God, she's cooking beef for me and she's vegetarian. This is amazing.'
"And I walked in and said, 'What are you cooking?'
"She said, 'That's not for us. That's the dog's dinner'... And I ate it."
