Robert Frederick Zenon Geldof (; "Geldof". Collins English Dictionary. born 5 October 1951) is an Irish singer-songwriter and political activist. He rose to prominence in the late 1970s as the lead singer of the Irish rock band the Boomtown Rats, who achieved popularity as part of the punk rock movement. The band had UK number one hits with his co-compositions "Rat Trap" and "I Don't Like Mondays". Geldof starred as Pink in Pink Floyd's 1982 film Pink Floyd – The Wall. As a fundraiser, Geldof organised the charity supergroup Band Aid and the concerts Live Aid and Live 8, and co-wrote "Do They Know It's Christmas?", one of the best-selling singles to date.
Geldof is widely recognised for his activism, especially his anti-poverty efforts concerning Africa. In 1984, he and Midge Ure founded the charity supergroup Band Aid to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia. They went on to organise the charity super-concert Live Aid the following year and the Live 8 concerts in 2005."Live Aid duo win second Ivor gong", 4 June 2005, Music Week, p.1 Geldof currently serves as an adviser to the ONE Campaign, co-founded by fellow Irish rock singer and activist Bono, and is a member of the Africa Progress Panel (APP), a group of ten distinguished individuals who advocate at the highest levels for equitable and sustainable development in Africa.
Geldof was granted an honorary knighthood (KBE) by Elizabeth II in 1986 for his charity work in Africa: it is an honorary award as Geldof is an Irish citizen, but he is often referred to as 'Sir Bob'. He is a recipient of the Man of Peace title which recognises individuals who have made "an outstanding contribution to international social justice and peace", among numerous other awards and nominations. In 2005, he received the Brit Awards for Outstanding Contribution to Music.
Geldof attended Blackrock College, where he was bullied for being a poor rugby player and for his middle name, Zenon. After working as a slaughterman, a Navvy and pea canner in Wisbech, England, he was hired as a music journalist in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, for The Georgia Straight. He briefly guest hosted the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation children's program Switchback.
Geldof became known as a colourful interview subject. The Boomtown Rats' first appearance on Ireland's The Late Late Show saw Geldof as deliberately brusque to host Gay Byrne and during his interview, he attacked Irish politicians and the Catholic Church, which he blamed for many of the country's problems. He responded to nuns in the audience who tried to shout him down by saying they had "an easy life with no material worries in return for which they gave themselves body and soul to the church". He also criticised Blackrock College. The interview caused uproar, making it impossible for The Boomtown Rats to play in Ireland again.
In January 2013, Geldof announced The Boomtown Rats would be reforming to play together for the first time since 1986 at that year's Isle of Wight Festival in June. They have subsequently announced further tour dates and released a new CD .
His first solo records sold reasonably well and spawned the hit singles "This Is The World Calling" (co-written with Dave Stewart of Eurythmics) and "The Great Song of Indifference". He also occasionally performed with other artists, such as David Gilmour and Thin Lizzy; a performance of "Comfortably Numb" with Gilmour is documented in the DVD release David Gilmour in Concert (2002). In 1992, he performed at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert with the surviving members of Queen at the old Wembley Stadium, singing a song he jokingly claimed to have co-written with Mercury, called "Too Late God". (The song was actually co-written by Karl Hyde.)
Geldof has also worked as a DJ for XFM radio. In 1998, he erroneously announced Ian Dury's death from cancer, possibly due to hoax information from a listener who was disgruntled at the station's change of ownership. The event caused music paper NME (who had been involved in a running feud with Geldof since his Boomtown Rats days—primarily due to his disparagement of The Clash) to call Geldof 'the world's worst DJ'.
Along with U2's Bono, he has devoted much time since 2000 to campaigning for debt relief for developing countries. His commitments in this field, including the organisation of the Live 8 concerts, kept Geldof from producing any more musical output since 2001's album Sex, Age & Death.
In 2002, he was listed as one of the 100 Greatest Britons in a poll conducted among the general public, despite not being British.
After Live 8, Geldof returned to his career as a musician by releasing a box set containing all of his solo albums entitled Great Songs of Indifference – The Anthology 1986–2001 in late 2005. Following that release, Geldof toured, albeit with mixed success.
In July 2006, Geldof arrived at Milan's Arena Civica, a venue capable of holding 12,000 people, to play a scheduled concert to find that the organisers had not put the tickets on general sale and that only 45 people had shown up. Geldof refused to go on stage once he found out how small the attendance was. To offer some compensation for fans, Geldof stopped to sign autographs for those who had shown up. He then played a well-attended free Storytellers concert for MTV Italy in Naples, in October 2006.
In its first week of release, the single became the UK's fastest-seller of all time, entering the UK Singles Chart at number one and staying there for five weeks, becoming the Christmas number one of 1984. It went on to sell over three million copies, making it the biggest-selling single in UK history up to that point, a title it held for almost 13 years. The single was also a major US hit, peaking at number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 and selling an estimated 2.5 million copies in the US by January 1985. The single would eventually sell 11.7 million copies worldwide.
New versions of "Do They Know It's Christmas?" were recorded in 1989 and 2004. In November 2014, Geldof announced that he would be forming a further incarnation of Band Aid, to be known as Band Aid 30, to record an updated version of the Charity record, with the proceeds going to treat victims of the Ebola virus in West Africa.
Geldof and Ure organised Live Aid, a huge event staged simultaneously on 13 July 1985 at the Wembley Stadium in London and John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia. Live Aid 1985: A day of magic. CNN. Retrieved 22 May 2021 Thanks to an unprecedented decision by the BBC to clear its schedules for 16 hours of rock music, the event was also broadcast live in the UK on television and radio.
It was one of the most monumental stage shows in history, with Phil Collins flying on Concorde so that he could play at both Wembley and Philadelphia on the same day.
During the broadcast of Live Aid, Geldof shocked viewers into giving cash by not only twice mouthing profanities but also by slamming his fist on the table and ordering them not to go out to the pub but to stay in and watch the show. concert on 15 June 1986 in East Rutherford, New Jersey.]] Nearly seven hours into the concert in London, Geldof gave an infamous interview in which he used the word fuck. The BBC presenter David Hepworth, conducting the interview, had attempted to provide a list of addresses to which potential donations should be sent; Geldof interrupted him in mid-flow and shouted: "Fuck the address, let's get the phone numbers!" It has passed into folklore that he yelled at the audience, "Give us your fucking money!" although Geldof has stated that this phrase was never uttered.Geldof, Bob. Live Aid DVD. Due to his Irish accent, the profanity was stated to be misheard as "fock" and "focking" respectively. After the outburst, donations increased to £300 per second.
The harrowing video of dying, skeletal children—introduced by David Bowie following the end of his set—that had been made by CBC photo-journalists setting their films to the tune of "Drive" by The Cars, contributed to the concert's success.
In total, Live Aid raised over Pound sign150 million for famine relief. Geldof subsequently received an honorary knighthood, at age 34, for his efforts. His autobiography, written soon after with Paul Vallely, was entitled Is That It?. The book achieved further fame for being featured on the General Certificate of Secondary Education examination syllabus in a following year.
Much of the money raised by Live Aid went to NGOs in Ethiopia, some of which were under the influence or control of the Derg military junta. Some journalists have suggested that the Derg was able to use Live Aid and Oxfam money to fund its enforced resettlement and "villagification" programmes, under which at least 3 million people are said to have been displaced and between 50,000 and 100,000 killed.David Rieff "Cruel to be kind?", The Guardian, 24 June 2005 However, in November 2010 the BBC formally apologised to Geldof for misleading implications in its stories on the subject of Band Aid, saying it had 'no evidence' that Band Aid money specifically went to buy weapons.
The result was the Commission for Africa. Blair invited Geldof and 16 other Commissioners, the majority from Africa and many of them politicians in power, to undertake a year-long study of Africa's problems. They came up with two conclusions: that Africa needed to change, to improve its governance and combat corruption, and that the rich world needed to support that change in new ways. That meant doubling aid, delivering debt cancellation, and reforming trade rules. The Commission drew up a detailed plan of how that could be done. It reported in March 2005. To force the issue Geldof decided to create a new international lobby for Africa with eight simultaneous concerts around the world to put pressure on the G8. He called it Live 8. The commission's recommendations later became the blueprint for the G8 Gleneagles African debt and aid package.
The concerts were free, and were scheduled just days before world leaders gathered in Gleneagles Hotel, for the G8 economic summit, on 6 July. Ure organised the 'final push' Live 8 concert at Edinburgh. 'The boys and girls with guitars will finally get to turn the world on its axis,' Geldof said in a statement. Pink Floyd's performance in London was their first since 1981 to include original vocalist/bassist, Roger Waters.
Geldof was also criticised for the lack of African acts performing at Live 8. Geldof responded that only the biggest-selling artists would attract the huge audience required to capture the attention of the world in the run-up to the G8 meeting. In the lead-up to the G8 summit, Geldof, who had been a member of Tony Blair's Commission for Africa on which the Gleneagles recommendations were largely based, labelled Kumi Naidoo's criticism of the summit "a disgrace". Some leading African campaigners have asked Geldof to stand down from the global anti-poverty movement, and the New Internationalist (between January and February 2006) said 'It would be long overdue if he did.'
There were also accusations that Live 8 gave unqualified support to the personal and political agendas of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, particularly in the lead-up to an election. Though many felt that it was the British politicians who had accepted Geldof's agenda, rather than the other way round, this led to accusations that Geldof had compromised his cause.
The promises made for Africa at the Gleneagles summit were widely praised: "the greatest summit for Africa ever" (Kofi Annan), "an important, if incomplete, boost to the development prospects of the poorest countries" economist (Jeffrey Sachs) or "a major breakthrough on debt" (Kevin Wakins, former head of research at Oxfam). But many aid agencies pronounced their disappointment with the outcome, feeling that the strict conditions imposed on African countries for accepting debt relief left them little better off than before. The New Internationalist scathingly stated, since becoming prominent in the salvation of Africa, "Geldof has re-released the entire back catalogue of the Boomtown Rats."
Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher became one of the more vocal sceptics about the impact of Live 8, citing his belief that rock stars have less influence over world leaders than popular culture may believe. His explanation was:
During mid-November 2008, a local for-profit organisation, Diversity@Work, invited Geldof to Melbourne, to speak about Third World poverty and the failure of governments to combat the crisis. It was later revealed that he was paid $100,000 for his speech, which included a luxury hotel room and first-class airfares.
The following year, Geldof returned his Freedom of Dublin award in protest at Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi holding the same honour. He said he does not want to be associated "with an individual currently engaged in the mass ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people". He added that if Suu Kyi "is stripped of her Dublin Freedom, perhaps the council would see fit to restore to me that which I take such pride in". The Lord Mayor of Dublin, Mícheál Mac Donncha, accused Geldof of hypocrisy, saying "I find it ironic that he makes this gesture while proudly retaining his title as Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, given the shameful record of British imperialism".
One month later, Dublin City Council voted to revoke the Freedom of the City from both Suu Kyi and Geldof, with several councillors saying Geldof had "insulted" Dublin. Geldof was furious at the decision to revoke his award, calling it a "Sinn Féin stitch-up" because of his Easter Rising comments.
The Dictionary of Man, announced by Geldof in 2007, is a project he started with director John Maguire, and is financed by the BBC. It was planned that the collected material would be displayed on a website, and be available for distribution through DVDs, books, magazines, CDs, and exhibitions. Geldof reportedly had been planning it since he visited Niger in the 1980s and became aware of the number of native languages becoming lost forever as died.
, he served a term as patron of the Exeter Entrepreneurs' Society at the University of Exeter.
Geldof is chairman of 8 Miles, a private equity firm active in Africa.
In 2003, during a visit to Ethiopia, Geldof praised U.S. President George W. Bush's proposal to fight AIDS in Africa.
In December 2005, Geldof agreed to give advice on global poverty to the Conservative Party. He stated, however, that he was uninterested in party politics: "I've said I'll shake hands with the devil on my left and the devil on my right to get to where we need to be."
Geldof was a vocal supporter of the unsuccessful campaign for the UK to vote "Remain" in the 2016 referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union. Shortly before the vote, in what was described as the "most surreal day in British politics ever", Geldof led a flotilla on the River Thames to attack an opposition flotilla led by Eurosceptic politician Nigel Farage. Later that year, Geldof campaigned for the Liberal Democrat candidate Sarah Olney at the Richmond Park by-election. He described Brexit as "the greatest act of national self-harm" in British history and vowed to "undermine" Theresa May every step of the way. He said the EU was "a mess" but warned Britain's young people had their futures "taken from them" as a result of the referendum.
Ahead of the 2024 United Kingdom general election Geldof posted a video endorsing the re-election of Conservative candidate and Minister of State for Development and Africa Andrew Mitchell.
In 1985, he was made a Grand Officer of the Order of the Two Niles by Sudan's president Abdel Rahman Swar al-Dahab. In 1986 Geldof was made a Freeman of the Borough of Swale, in north Kent, England. Geldof had for some years been resident in the borough, at Davington Priory, Faversham, and was still living there . He received his award during a special meeting of the Swale Borough Council from the mayor, Councillor Richard Moreton, and the mayoress, Rose Moreton.
In 2004, Geldof was made a development chief in Ghana. This subsequently led to some controversy, as a number of people have since questioned why he hardly ever returns to Ajumako-Bisease (the village that ennobled him) anymore.
In 2006 the New Statesman magazine conducted a survey of their readers to find the Heroes of our Time, Geldof was voted third behind Aung San Suu Kyi and Nelson Mandela.
Before they were married, the couple had their first daughter, Fifi Trixibelle Geldof, born 31 March 1983. She was named Fifi after Bob's aunt Fifi and Trixibelle because Yates wanted a 'belle' in the family.
After 10 years together, Geldof and Yates married in June 1986 in Las Vegas, with Simon Le Bon (of Duran Duran) acting as Geldof's best man. The couple later had two more daughters, Peaches Geldof (known as Peaches Geldof) on 13 March 1989, and Pixie Geldof (known as Pixie Geldof) on 17 September 1990. Pixie is said to be named after a celebrity daughter character from the cartoon Celeb in the satirical magazine Private Eye, itself a lampoon of the names the Geldofs gave to their other children.
In February 1995, Yates left Geldof for Michael Hutchence, the lead singer of band INXS. Yates had first met Hutchence in 1985 when she interviewed him on The Tube. Geldof and Yates divorced in May 1996. Yates and Hutchence had a daughter, Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily Hutchence (known as Tiger), in July 1996.
Hutchence died by suicide in a Sydney hotel room on 22 November 1997. After Hutchence's death, Geldof and Yates each gave police statements on the phone calls they exchanged with Hutchence that morning; however, they did not volunteer their phone records. Yates' statement on 26 November included "He was frightened and couldn't stand a minute more without his baby ... he was terribly upset and he said, 'I don't know how I'll live without seeing Tiger. Yates contended that Geldof had repeatedly said, "Don't forget, I am above the law," referring to his influence since Live Aid. Geldof's police statements and evidence to the coroner indicated that he patiently listened to Hutchence who was "hectoring and abusive and threatening." A friend of Yates and Geldof confirmed the substance of this call and added that Geldof had said, "I know what time the call ended, it was 20 to 7, I was going to log it as a threatening call." The occupant in the hotel room next to Hutchence's heard a loud male voice and swearing at about 5:00 a.m. The coroner was satisfied that this voice was Hutchence arguing with Geldof.
Geldof later went to court and obtained full custody of his three children. He has since become an outspoken advocate of fathers' rights. After Yates' death from a heroin overdose in 2000, Geldof became the legal guardian of Tiger Hutchence and later adopted her in 2007. As of 2019, Tiger's legal name is Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily Hutchence Geldof.
In April 2014, his daughter Peaches died at the age of 25, of a heroin overdose. Geldof stated the family was "beyond pain" after he confirmed the news of her death.
Geldof announced his engagement to French actress Jeanne Marine, his partner of 18 years, on 1 May 2014, and they were married in France on 28 April 2015. They currently reside in Battersea, South London.
Regarding his ancestry, in an interview with the Manchester-based Jewish Telegraph, Geldof said "I was a quarter Catholic, a quarter Protestant, a quarter Jewish and a quarter nothing – the nothing won."
According to The Sunday Times Rich List, Geldof was worth £32 million in 2012.
Controversies
AIDS 2014 Conference
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Wayback Machine: for which he was subsequently criticised. Christian Vega, a sex workers' rights activist and a member of Victoria's peer-only Victorian Sex Industry Network (VIXEN), criticised speakers including Geldof for their use of pejorative language; Vega contended that this language perpetuated stigmas that are among the key barriers to HIV prevention. Geldof responded to the criticism during the closing session of the conference: "I read today in the paper that my talk yesterday was littered with profanities – fuck them." In Geldof's view, rights-based language hampered HIV prevention, and he defended using terms such as "hookers" and "": "Let's not get distracted by diversionary language. Let's call it as it is."Archived at Ghostarchive and the
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Wayback Machine: In a radio show after the conference on Joy 94.9, Vega dismissed Geldof's view that rights-based language was a waste of time as "ridiculous". In Vega's view, this language served as an important tool to challenge Social stigma and discrimination, particularly within an HIV context.
Freedom of Dublin and Easter Rising comments
Mauritius Leaks
Businessman
Groupcall
Views
Politics
Fathers' rights
Population
Awards and honours
Other awards
Personal life
Discography
Solo albums
1986 Deep in the Heart of Nowhere
79 — — 27 — — 3 18 15 130 1990 The Vegetarians of Love
21 43 27 15 — 37 — — 20 - 1992 The Happy Club
— 91 — 60 52 — 73 — 39 — 2001 Sex, Age & Death
134 — — — — — — — — — 2010 How to Compose Popular Songs That Will Sell
89 — — — 87 — — — — — "—" denotes a release that did not chart.
Compilation albums
1994 Loudmouth – The Best of Bob Geldof and the Boomtown Rats
10 2005 Great Songs of Indifference: The Anthology 1986–2001
— "—" denotes a release that did not chart.
Singles
1986 "This Is the World Calling" 25 93 28 1 29 1 10 18 82
[#endnote''']]Deep in the Heart of Nowhere 1987 "Love Like a Rocket" 61 — 18 21 76 11 60 — — "Heartless Heart" — — — — — — — — — "I Cry Too" — — — — — — — — — "In the Pouring Rain" — — — — — — — — — 1990 "The Great Song of Indifference" 15 25 20 7 16 — — — — Vegetarians of Love "Love or Something" 86 74 55 — — — — — —
[#endnote''']]"A Gospel Song" — — — — — — — — — 1992 "Room 19 (Sha La La La Lee)" — — 53 — — — — — — Happy Club "My Hippy Angel" — 143 — — — — — — 1993 "The Happy Club" — — — — — — — — — "Yeah, Definitely" — — — — — — — — — 1994 "Crazy" 65 — 72 — — — — — — Loudmouth – The Best of Bob Geldof & the Boomtown Rats 1996 "Rat Trap"
(Dustin & Geldof)— — — 1 — — — — — 2002 "Pale White Girls" — — — — — — — — — Sex Age & Death 2011 "Silly Pretty Thing" 146 — — — — — — — — How To Compose Popular Songs That Will Sell "Here's To You" — — — — — — — — —
Film appearances
In literature
See also
External links
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