Eve Hewson is on the rise.
From film roles such as “Robin Hood” (2018) and “Flora and Son” (2023) to ensemble projects such as the Peabody Award-winning film “Bad Sisters” (2022) and the latest Netflix miniseries “The Perfect Couple,” the Irish actor is quickly becoming a household name.
But did you know that 33-year-old Hewson is already familiar with international superstar status…at least indirectly?
Hewson is the second eldest of four siblings and the daughter of Ali and Paul Hewson, the latter better known as Bono, who has been in the spotlight since the 1970s as the lead singer of the legendary rock band U2.
Eve Hewson spoke on TODAY on September 9 about what it was like growing up with Bono as her father.
“He’s such a stage dad,” she said. “I’ve called him that before and he loves it, but he’s like the male Kris Jenner.”
“He’s totally into it, just a huge fan,” she added. “He’s always like, ‘Well, this is what you need to do: you need to call this person, you need to do this,’ and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, calm down.'”
TODAY’s Craig Melvin asked if Bono still behaves this way now.
“Oh, even now you can’t stop him,” said Hewson with a smile.
Here’s everything we know about Hewson’s parents, including details about how they met, fell in love, and married in 1982.
Who is Alison Hewson?
Like Bono, Ali was born in Dublin, Ireland; her family is from the northern suburb of Raheny. According to the Irish Independent, Bono was her “first real boyfriend.” The two met when she was 15 and he was 16, around the time U2 formed in 1976.
She has a degree in Politics and Sociology from University College Dublin and has four children with the musician: Eve (born 1991), Jordan (born 1989), John (born 2001) and Elijah (born 1999). Elijah is the frontman and guitarist of the band Inhaler.
Ali, now 63, also served as inspiration for several U2 songs, most notably “Sweetest Thing,” which was originally written when the band recorded the 1987 album “The Joshua Tree.”
Bono wrote the song as an apology for being so absent from their lives while they were recording the album. “It was Ali’s birthday and I didn’t make it to the birthday,” he told Rolling Stone in 1998.
The song was eventually included on the band’s compilation album “Best of 1980-1990/The B-Sides” and released as a single in 1998, entering the charts worldwide. Ali even appeared in the music video, on the condition that the proceeds from the song would go to the Chernobyl Children’s Project.
Ali has been an activist for many years and became involved in the anti-nuclear movement in the 1990s. According to IMDb, she produced Black Wind, White Land: Living With Chernobyl, a documentary about the ongoing effects of the nuclear disaster, in 1993.
She is also a businesswoman and, according to WWD, co-founded the fair trade clothing company Edun with her husband. According to another story in WWD, she also founded the ethical skincare company Nude (the opposite of “Edun”).
In 2020, Hewson spoke to the Irish Daily Mirror about her children, noting: “I’m just so happy for them, for every single one of them. You can only hope they find their way.”
And as for her relationship with Bono, that’s also a very sweet thing.
“There’s a lot of madness around us,” Bono said at the 2022 New York Festival, according to People. “It’s something special to know that you’re up against all odds. But if you ask me seriously, I would say that sometimes friendship can trump romantic love. And friendship is what Ali and I have. When you have romantic love and friendship, it’s really special.”
Who is Bono?
Paul David Hewson became Bono as a teenager.
According to the 2005 book Bono: In Conversation With Michka Assayas and a 2022 interview on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, the nickname was inspired by the name of a hearing aid shop in Dublin called Bonavox (which means “good voice” in Latin), which Paul and his friend Guggi gave him.
Bono first found success with U2, who began releasing music in 1979. Since then, Bono has won 22 Grammys, been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, was named one of Time magazine’s Persons of the Year in 2005, and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2007.
Outside of his band, he has continued to contribute to the industry over the years, including helping to write the soundtrack to the musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark with bandmate The Edge.
Offstage, Bono supports causes such as poverty and HIV/AIDS in Africa, according to the Irish Times. His Christian faith is often a driving force behind his philanthropy, as are his lyrics (in 2022, he told NPR that “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” is a “gospel song”).
In the 1990s, Bono was diagnosed with glaucoma, which made it difficult for him to take flash photographs. Explaining to the Guardian in 2014 why he wears tinted or dark sunglasses in public, he said: “I have good treatments and I’ll be fine.”
As for family life, Bono and his wife have been married for more than four decades. As parents of four children, the couple were initially unsure if they could be good parents with their father playing in a rock band.
As Bono wrote in his 2022 memoir, Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story, “I wasn’t sure I could be ambidextrous enough to be a bandleader and a father. I was terrified of those responsibilities and of screwing them up. As Ali and I walked home from Quincy (Jones) one night, an invisible switch flipped. We talked about kids, and how conventional life isn’t the only way to parent, that people who live in their imagination can also live in the real world of parent-teacher meetings, school trips and birthday parties. A month later, Ali was pregnant.”
Staying close to his family was crucial. “I’m never away from Ali and the kids for more than three weeks,” he said in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, giving Ali credit for keeping the family strong. “She’s just so cool.”
