Bono says he nearly died but won't offer details

The U2 lead singer opened up in a new interview

U2. Credit: Helena Christensen.

Just at the tail-end of 2017, U2's Bono has given a 10,000-word interview that has quite the soundbite...

In a conversation with Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner, the U2 frontman speaks on love, politics, faith, and in-between that, divulges that he almost died.

While the text is richly full of detail, Bono still knows how to remain enigmatic to his fans.

While the sub-headline addresses Bono's near-death experience outright - “U2’s frontman on the state of his band, the state of the world and what he learned from almost dying" - he remains tight-lipped on the situation dancing around it with vague descriptions.

The 57-year-old singer referred to this instance as an “extinction event," which he says he finds hard to discuss, saying: "It's just a thing that . . . people have these extinction events in their lives; it could be psychological or it could be physical. And, yes, it was physical for me, but I think I have spared myself all that soap opera. Especially with this kind of celebrity obsession with the minutiae of peoples' lives – I have got out of that. I want to speak about the issue in a way that lets people fill in the blanks of what they have been through, you know?"

His terrifying ordeal added to the apparent theme of mortality on U2's latest record Songs of Experience.

But it also made him focus on a broader world view of health and humanity overall.

"But, you know, people have had so much worse to deal with, so that is another reason not to talk about it," he later said. "You demean all the people who, you know, never made it through that or couldn't get health care!"

All we can really conclude is that Bono almost died and he'd much rather have you speculate on the details instead of telling you outright.

Hopefully U2 fans can read between the lines of the band's latest record to find out why.