In news that’ll provide another entry to your bucket list, Bono has recalled the time he got drunk with Barack Obama and promptly passed out in a bedroom of the White House.
The U2 frontman spoke of the incident — which took place when he visited the former President’s residence in 2010 — during a recent interview on BBC Radio 2. Bono prefaced the story by partly blaming his drunkenness on an allergy to red wine ingredients, which often prompts him to “fall asleep somewhere”.
Elsewhere on the drinks menu, Bono recalled how — in addition to once possessing the nuclear codes — Obama also doubles as a mean mixologist. “He does make strong cocktails”, the rocker recalled, “[but] he doesn’t have too many, he’s very measured.” After downing what reads like a tenth-grader’s Friday night (speaking from experience), Bono was forced to duck out of the President’s dinner to take a nap.
Relaying what Obama had told his wife Alison, Bono said he’d passed out for around 10 minutes in the bedroom of former President Abraham Lincoln, and later awoke to both Obama and his wife at the door. “[Obama] came with [my wife] and asked where I could be,” Bono said, “And there I was in Lincoln’s bedroom, fallen asleep in the bosom of Abraham himself.”
While the sheer pressure of a drunken mishap in Licoln’s bedroom might’ve had some on edge (does it come with a vomit bucket?), Bono said Obama was nothing but a good sport. “He just woke me up and laughed,” the musician recalled, “The President laughed his head off.” Rightfully gloating about the incident, Bono concluded the interview by reminding us of just how hardcore his storied life has been.
“I’ve slept on the street, on car bonnets and indeed I did fall asleep at the White House, and they were very, very good about it actually,” he said. Bono’s boozy White House bash is referenced in his 2022 memoir 40 Songs, One Story, which hits shelves sometime this month. Obama, meanwhile, has made his interest in the music world known, having compiled an annual playlist of his favourite songs every year since 2017.
