Bono Stated an African Baby Dies Each Time He Claps?

In Might 2024, a declare started to unfold throughout Fb that alleged U2 vocalist Bono as soon as mentioned throughout a efficiency {that a} baby in Africa dies each time he claps, to which an viewers member shouted at him to cease, as if the clapping precipitated the deaths.

One submit said:

Random Ideas:  Bono

Singer Bono, who is thought for his charity work and world-wide aid efforts, is about to carry out for a sold-out crowd in Belfast Eire 

He walks on stage, steps as much as the microphone, and claps his palms. Six seconds later, he claps his palms once more.  One other six seconds, Bono but once more claps his palms.

A couple of minute goes by of Bono clapping his palms each six seconds, then publicizes, “Each time I clap my palms, a toddler in Africa dies.”

Bono begins to clap once more, pausing each six seconds between every clap.

Lastly, a voice is heard from the viewers with a thick irish brogue saying……….. “Nicely then, cease clapping … !”  

We beforehand fact-checked this claim in 2006, the place we discovered the declare was false, starting as a “joke” with the viewers member’s retort and since taking over a lifetime of its personal.

This tall story’s origins lie in a commercial made as a part of 2005’s “Make Poverty Historical past” marketing campaign. Within the advert, celebrities like Brad Pitt, Sean “Diddy” Combs and Emma Thompson along with Bono are proven wordlessly snapping their fingers each three seconds, with a voiceover stating in direction of the start of the video, “A baby dies utterly unnecessarily because of excessive poverty each three seconds.”

The very fact-check acknowledged the joke turned connected to Bono in 2006, across the identical time the singer called upon the Irish authorities to ship extra help to Africa. That was also the yr U2 moved its music publishing firm from Eire to the Netherlands after the previous mentioned it will scrap a tax break that permit musicians keep away from paying taxes on royalties. 

We wrote within the fact-check:

Whereas tax-avoidance among the many super-rich is the widespread manner of issues, this specific very rich particular person’s seemingly performing to maintain his personal cash out of the tax pool that will fund the rise in help he was calling for left a nasty style within the mouths of many.

Like many different claims we have written about earlier than, it appeared these info finally merged collectively to create the clapping “joke” simply believed to be true by customers throughout the web unfamiliar with what had really occurred.

Bono has publicly denied the declare. In 2007, a spokesperson for Bono instructed the New York Each day Information that Bono was “baffled” by the assertions, stating, “He is by no means even carried out the clapping factor.”

We discovered the joke has been reworked to focus on different public figures, like former U.S. President Barack Obama. We discovered a discussion board submit from 2008 that instructed an especially comparable model of the story, inserting Obama for Bono and dying African kids for dying American kids (from gun violence):

Barack Obama, the lead Presidential Democratic Get together candidate, is for banning all weapons in America. He’s thought-about by those that have handled him as a bit greater than just a bit self-righteous.

At a current rural elementary college meeting in East Texas, he requested the viewers for complete quiet. Then, within the silence, he began to slowly clap his palms as soon as each few seconds, holding the viewers in complete silence.

Then he mentioned into the microphone, “Kids, each time I clap my palms collectively, a toddler in America dies from gun violence.”

Then, little Richard Earl, with a proud East Texas drawl, pierced the quiet and mentioned:

“Nicely, dumb-a**, cease clapping.”

As a result of there is no such thing as a proof that Bono ever mentioned what was claimed, as a result of the singer has publicly denied he mentioned it, and since there’s proof the declare started as a joke that has since featured fellow public figures as an alternative of him, we have now rated the declare about Bono clapping as “False.”

We have now fact-checked different claims about Bono, like a real declare that he was photographed singing with Freddie Mercury and Paul McCartney in 1985

Sources