For any couple to successfully make it through four decades of marriage is impressive, but for someone famous, it’s downright historic. According to the U.K.-based organization Marriage Foundation, as of 2012, celebrities had twice the divorce rate as the average U.K. citizen. Though divorce rates have fallen and new marriages are now predicted to last longer than they were in the past, 40 years of marriage at this point is certainly worth celebrating.
That’s one reason Bono’s 40-year marriage to his wife, Ali, is giving people feelings.
Another reason is that the U2 frontman has shared a beautiful animatic honoring his and Ali’s wedding day for their 40th wedding anniversary.
Bono narrates the four-minute video as moving sketches illustrate the story. He starts by describing the final morning he lived in his parents’ house before he married Ali on August 31, 1982, painting a picture of his strained relationship with his father before sharing the feelings he had on his wedding day.
The text comes from Bono’s upcoming memoir, “Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story,” and if the video is any indication, the book will be a poetic telling of a fascinating life in the spotlight. Bono has spent most of his 62 years—and all of his marriage to Ali—as a rock star, with U2’s first album, “Boy,” being released in 1980 and their first No. 1 album, “War” being released in 1983.
But every global superstar is just a human being in a marital relationship, subject to the same gifts and challenges of intimacy as anyone else. If anything, fame makes relationships harder, but Bono and Ali appear to have made it work through four decades of world tours, flashing cameras and diehard fandom.
This animatic offers a small glimpse of what lies at the heart of their success as a couple.
u201c40 years ago today, Bono married his soulmate, Ali. In a new animation featuring an excerpt from Bonou2019s upcoming memoir, SURRENDER: 40 Songs, One Story, he recounts a special dayu2026 their wedding. #SurrenderMemoiru201d— U2 (@U2)
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Ali truly has been there since the beginning. The couple were high school sweethearts who started dating in 1976, the same year U2 formed.
— VERO ABEL Henry Véro (@VABEL360) August 31, 2022
Ali has served as the inspiration for many U2 songs, perhaps most notably “The Sweetest Thing.” Originally written in 1988 as an apology for being in the studio on her birthday, the song was remade in 2000 and became a hit. Bono dedicated all of the proceeds from the single to Ali’s favorite charity, Chernobyl Children’s Project International. She is featured at the beginning of the music video for the song, with the rest of the video looking through her eyes.
Congratulations on 40 years of marriage, Bono and Ali. May we all be so fortunate to find that kind of love.