Bob Geldof rejects 'white saviour' criticism of his charity work in Africa

Bob Geldof has dismissed suggestions that he has a "white saviour complex" because of his charity work.

The 73-year-old musician was the driving force behind both the Live Aid single Do They Know It's Christmas? and the Band Aid charity concert which raised awareness of famine in Ethiopia during the 1980s and has scoffed at those who are disparaging of his efforts.

In an interview with the i newspaper, Geldof said of the "white saviour" term: "That doesn't exist.

"That's just a word, a theory like Original Sin."

U2 rocker Bono – who worked closely with Geldof in raising money for Africa – confessed in his 2022 memoir Surrender 40 Songs, One Story that he considered some of Band Aid's work to be tone deaf but the Boomtown Rats frontman has dismissed "woke" criticism of the charity work.

Quizzed on Bono's comments, Bob said: "Well yeah, he probably believes it. But there isn't such a thing. I'm not interested in political correctness, this certain woke stuff.

"It'll pass and you'll still have hungry people. I'm only interested in stopping human beings dying of starvation. I'm not interested in boosting someone's idea of their parents' country."

Geldof's ongoing work with the Band Aid Charitable Trust has raised almost £150 million but he accepts that it has come at a personal cost as he feels it contributed to the end of his marriage to the late TV presenter Paula Yates – who left him for INXS frontman Michael Hutchence in 1995 before passing away from a heroin overdose in 2000 at the age of 41.

The Irish singer said: "I think that definitely affected marriage. But that was later down the track.

"The consequences were: you always worried that you were letting people down, that you were failing. I didn't doubt I had the ability to do these things. It sounds glib, but it's easier than getting people to hear your music. It's just there's never an end."

Bob admits that there have been times when he has considered what things would have been like if he hadn't become an activist.

The I Don't Like Mondays hitmaker explained: "I'm glad about everything that's happened. But would you have chosen a different life if you had been given the option?

"If I'd been told 40 years later, 'You're going to wake up to eight, 10, 12 emails of horror every morning?' Yeah..."