According to The Daily Mail, the U2 rocker was among the throngs of people who watched in horror as a truck driven by Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel plowed into the crowd of celebrants, murdering 84 people (including 10 children).
Advertisement
The 56-year-old legendary singer, was spotted enjoying a meal in a nearby restaurant at the time of the tragedy in the French city, reported Mirror.
“He was on the phone”.
Bono spent the evening of Bastille Day with friends on the restaurant terrace of La Petite Maison hotel along the Promenade des Anglais seafront road in Nice.
The staff closed the shutters and told everyone to hide and remain calm until the all-clear was given.
The Telegraph quotes a diner in the La Petit Maison restaurant as saying, “It took about half an hour for the police to get us out”. He says that Bono and his dining companions were among those who left the restaurant with their hands on their head.
‘The police were clearly very anxious that terrorists might still be at large, and everybody was under suspicion’.
“There was a panic”, an unnamed customer told La Parisienne.
“Some people who ran collapsed in front of the terrace”. All guests are brought indoors.
He and his U2 bandmates were rehearsing for an upcoming performance at the AccorHotels Arena in Paris as suicide bombers unleashed a barrage of attacks, including one that killed 89 people at the historic Bataclan theater.
But instead of immediately fleeing the French capital, all four U2 members instead headed to the Bataclan the following morning, and paid their respects to the dead.
Advertisement
As a boy, Bono witnessed the Dublin and Monaghan bombings by the IRA back in 1974, killing 33 people. The photo has since been removed.
