You’d think Bono would have enough on his plate lately. As well as banging on about Live 8, touring his generic new album and generally screaming at politicians like a shorter Michael Moore, the U2 frontman still has time to sue his former stylist for stealing his trousers.
The band’s stylist in the late 1980’s, Lola Cashman, is being sued by Bono and U2 for the possession of band memorabilia including earrings, a stetson hat, some Polaroids and the trousers.
We’ll totally overlook the fact that U2 (CDs) should be suing Ms Cashman
for dressing them up like a bunch of wannabe cowboy dolts – the clothes
they wore during The Joshua Tree period of their careers were similar
to the clothes that the crazy cowboy man wore around our town when we
were younger. And we weren’t allowed to talk to him.
U2 learnt that Lola Cashman was attempting to auction the items at
Christie’s three years ago – the auction house have been holding them
since then. She has also written a book, Inside The Zoo, about her time
with the band.
Bono spoke as a witness in court yesterday, and said "You may have
wealth and power, but when someone is trying to push us
around and blackmail us and threaten us with books, at a certain point
you have to say ‘Stop right there’." He added "They sound like trivial
items, they’re really not. They are important items to the group and we
take them seriously."
Most important was the Stetson hat that Cashman was alleged to have
taken, because of it’s apparent iconic status. Bono claimed that he
would never give away such a prestigious item, because "It would be
like the Edge giving one of his guitars away. It is not something which
will happen" even though, to our knowledge, Bono has never performed a
slightly-too-long solo with a hat.
Lola Cashman claims that all of the items were given to her as a
gift at the final show of The Joshua Tree tour in Arizona in 1987. The
trial continues.
[story by Stuart Heritage]