Bono reveals why Michael Hutchence cut ties with him
<p dir="ltr">Bono has shared the details that led to the end of his friendship with late INXS frontman Michael Hutchence. </p>
<p dir="ltr">In his new book, titled <em>Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story</em>, the U2 frontman reflects on his tumultuous friendship with Hutchence and partner Paula Yates in the early 90s.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Bono recalled the early days of Hutchence’s relationship with Yates, which started in 1994, while Yates was still married to Bono’s close friend, Bob Geldof.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“Paula worshipped Michael at a time when he needed all the adoration he could get, things not going well on- and offstage for INXS,” Bono writes.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Bono also says he and his wife of 40 years, Ali, had an immediate sense that the relationship was “going to go wrong, and that this intensity could not last a lifetime”.</p>
<p dir="ltr">And soon enough, Bono writes, the couple were in “free fall – spiralling down the vortex of a recreational drug use that had become hard work for everyone, especially their family, especially the younger ones”.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“As their behaviour changed, our friendship became strained, and we grew uncomfortable during their visits.”</p>
<p dir="ltr">Paula and Michael had one child together in 1996: a daughter named Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Bono and his wife were asked to be her godparents, to which they refused, as they were too “wigged out” by the couple’s rampant drug use. </p>
<p dir="ltr">They hoped their rejection of such a meaningful offer would make the new parents think twice about the path they were on. </p>
<p dir="ltr">True friendship, Bono writes, “meant being truthful. Friendship is not a sentimental business.”</p>
<p dir="ltr">But instead, their refusal only further pushed the two couples from each other further, as Bono says, “It only made them think again about us.”</p>
<p dir="ltr">“That we can half live with our conscience is no substitute for the fact that we can’t live at all with our friends. They are gone.”</p>
<p dir="ltr">Michael Hutchence committed suicide aged 37 in a Sydney hotel room in November 1997, while Yates died of a drug overdose in September 2000, aged 41, leaving four children behind. </p>
<p dir="ltr">“Neither of us dreamed they’d both end up dead so soon,” writes Bono. </p>
<p dir="ltr">“Even now, I can’t believe I’ve just written that.”</p>
<p dir="ltr"><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p>
