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41 years ago Bono’s Live Aid stage antics ended up saving a female fan from being crushed
It’s a little-known Bono moment but it might just be his very best.
By July 13, 1985, U2 was a massively popular rock band: riding the wave of two successive chart-topping U.K. albums (War and The Unforgettable Fire), even being anointed the “Band of the ’80s” in a Rolling Stone cover story. But their definitive moment of that year was a performance at Live Aid, a benefit for Ethiopian famine relief staged before 72,000 at London’s Wembley Stadium and broadcast to well over 1 billion TV viewers. They were already larger than life, but now they had the perfect venue and grandiose crowd interaction to showcase it.
Their short set featured a 12-minute version of their atmospheric 1984 song “Bad,” which they stretched out to include some quotes from The Rolling Stones’ “Ruby Tuesday” and, more famously, to accommodate the stage maneuvering of front man Bono. Halfway through the track, the singer gestured to the audience with a “come on”-type motion, eventually requesting a few female audience members be lifted out of the crowd by security.
According to some accounts, including viral social media posts, this was some kind of “rescue” attempt, and while it’s unclear precisely why Bono took action, the story has become a staple of the U2 canon.
In the above clip, you’ll see two fans guided to the apron area in front of the stage, where Bono briefly embraces them. But the most notable moment is when he jumps into the muddy area by the barricade, asking security to hoist over a teenager, with whom he slow-dances and offers a kiss on the cheek. Cameras, of course, caught the whole thing. Bono was a showman from day one, after all.
Over the years, there’s been a lot of debate and discussion about this Bono-meets-fan moment. In a detailed breakdown of the performance, Rolling Stone reports that the third fan was 15-year-old Kal Khalique. Someone by that name shared their Live Aid memories with the BBC, writing that they weren’t even at the show to see U2: “My sister and I were desperate to see Wham!, so we had made it down to the front of the stage. Half way through the day U2 came on suddenly Bono was pointing to me in the crowd and after a [number] of other girls were pulled out, he finally jumped down and got the security guys to pull me out and danced and hugged me, and I even got a kiss. I’ve been a huge U2 fan ever since.”
In 2011, The Guardian cited an article by The Sun, who apparently tracked down Khalique. “The crowd surged,” she reportedly claimed, “and I was suffocating—then I saw Bono.” But The Guardian also notes that Bono “had long made a habit of pulling girls out of the audience and dancing with them.” Was this just another example, only amplified by the drama of a hungry rock band playing the biggest stage imaginable?
Reasoning aside, it’s the kind of larger-than-life moment that came to define U2. It also happened at an ideal time, just ahead of their next album, 1987’s The Joshua Tree, a critically acclaimed and multi-platinum blockbuster that topped the Billboard 200 and spawned some of the bands most enduring singles, including “When the Streets Have No Name,” “With or Without You,” and “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.”
Live Aid also spawned one of rock’s most celebrated performances ever: Queen’s triumphant eight-track set featuring anthems like “We Are the Champions,” “Radio Ga Ga,” and “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.” That show was even etched into film history with an exacting recreation in the 2018 Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody.
This article originally appeared last year. It has been updated.
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Catherine O’Hara’s tear-jerking eulogy for John Candy was a master class in memorializing a true friend
Now that O’Hara has also passed, the beautiful words she spoke for Candy resonate in a new and painful way.
The comedy world lost two of its great lights decades apart. John Candy in 1994, and Catherine O’Hara on January 30, 2026. But O’Hara left something behind from that first loss: a nine-minute eulogy that remains one of the most moving tributes one friend has ever paid another.
Candy was the big-hearted comic-actor best known for his string of charismatic film roles in the 1980s and early 1990s, from Stripes to Planes, Trains, and Automobiles to Uncle Buck. He died at just 43 in 1994, following a heart attack. O’Hara, his close friend and collaborator from SCTV, Second City Toronto, and Home Alone, delivered the eulogy at his memorial service in Toronto, and in nine minutes she managed to capture everything that made him irreplaceable.
She opened the beautiful eulogy by summarizing all of the ways he “enriched” other people’s worlds, including so many small acts of kindness.
“I know you all have a story,” she says in the clip. “You asked him for his autograph, and he stopped to ask you about you. You auditioned for Second City, and John watched you smiling, laughing. And though you didn’t get the job, you did get to walk away thinking, ‘What do they know? John Candy thinks I’m funny.’ You walked behind John to communion. You carried his bags up to his hotel room, and he said, ‘Hey, that’s too heavy. Let me get that for you.’ And then he tipped you. Or was that a day’s pay?…you caught a John Candy scene on TV one night, right when you needed to laugh more than anything in the world.”
Meeting John Candy
O’Hara also shares her own story of meeting Candy in 1974, when he was director of the Second City touring company.
“When I joined him in the main cast, he drove us all the way to Chicago to play their Second City stage,” O’Hara recalls. “And I had a crush on him, of course, but he was deeply in love with [his wife, Rosemary]. So I got to be his friend, and I closed the Chicago bars with him, just to be with him. We did SCTV together. When we all tried to come up with opening credits that would somehow tell the audience exactly what we were trying with the show to say about TV, it was John who said, ‘Why don’t we just throw a bunch of TVs off a building?’”
The whole eulogy is filled with lovely details, as O’Hara reflects on Candy’s graciousness, his collaborative spirit, and the overall sparkle of his comedy.
“His movies are a safe haven for those of us who get overwhelmed by the sadness and troubles of this world,” she says. “As if he knew he’d be leaving us soon, John left us a library of fun to remember him by.”
And she ends with a moving note to illustrate their closeness: “God bless, dear John, our patron saint of laughter. God bless and keep his soul. I will miss him. But I hope and pray to leave this world too some day and to have a place near God—as near as any other soul, with the exception of John Candy.”
The Candy legacy
After the eulogy video resurfaced on Reddit, dozens of fans shared their emotions.
“I was eight years old when he passed, and to this day no celebrity death has ever hit me harder,” one user wrote. “How could such a bright light be gone so early? She’s right, his films are a safe haven for the soft-hearted. RIP.” Another added, “John Candy died over 30 years ago, but it still stings like it was yesterday. He left such an incredible and rare cultural mark.”
Candy was also the subject of the 2025 Amazon Prime documentary John Candy: I Like Me, directed by Colin Hanks and produced by Ryan Reynolds, in which O’Hara herself appears alongside other friends and collaborators. Conan O’Brien has talked frequently about how much he loved the SCTV star; he once talked to Howard Stern about his impactful meeting with Candy back in 1984, when O’Brien was a 21-year-old student at Harvard University (and president of the Harvard Lampoon).
“We ended up hanging out,” O’Brien recalled, “and what I remember most clearly is that he was everything I wanted him to be. He was John Candy.”
This article originally appeared last year. It has been updated.
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Second-grade teacher asks her students for marriage advice. Here’s their 7 best responses.
You couldn’t get better advice from a team of professionals.
Children form strong worldview opinions at a very young age. Naturally curious, their thinking and insights can lead to blunt but brilliant relationship advice.
Klarissa Trevino, a second-grade teacher, had a fun idea: to ask her students for advice ahead of her marriage. In a TikTok post, she shared some of their favorite responses, which they were genuinely thrilled to share.
Teacher hands out worksheets
Trevino wanted to find a way to involve her second-grade students in her wedding, so she printed out worksheets with the prompt, “The marriage advice I give my teacher is…”
Sharing some of her favorite responses in a TikTok post, Trevino quickly went viral. She told People, “Being able to get a glimpse of their version of marriage and love was very sweet. It made me so happy that they have homes that have shown them the true meaning of it.”
One of her favorite responses was, “do not eat each other’s snacks.”
Students write.
Photo credit: CanvaMarriage advice from second graders
This is the best marriage advice these second graders had to offer—some might argue it’s as helpful and supportive as any professional’s opinion. Here are some of their responses to the prompt, “The marriage advice I give my teacher is…”:
“to be kind and love each other.”
“care and care for each other! Happy marriage!”
“do not eat each others snacks.”
“is to give her flowers.”
“get her Starbucks evrey day.”
“to take her on a date/ and go to a five star restraunt.”
“care for [each other] And Love her. do not hurt her!”
Students raise their hands in class.
Photo credit: CanvaPeople are delighted by insightful second graders
Viewers in the comments were delighted by the second graders’ advice, and some of their own responses were just as insightful as the kids’.
“Kids are so smart.”
“The best advice ever..”
“Imagine how many marriages could’ve been saved if ppl just left eachother’s snacks alone”
“This is legitimately better marriage advice than you see on TikTok.”
“You should publish this, because people could really learn a thing or two from your students”
“I’m teaching the wrong grade!!”
“These are signs that these kids have wonderful parents and figures in there life’s …. and a wonderful teacher who loves and cares for them”
Students pose for a picture.
Photo credit: CanvaStudies show that kids have meaningful insights
These second graders shared straightforward, thoughtful insights. Yet research shows that children offering meaningful perspectives is nothing new. A 2025 study found that kids begin to understand other people’s feelings, beliefs, and even motivations at a very young age. They aren’t boxed in by adult expectations, which helps keep their thinking fresh and profound.
A 2025 study found that even children as young as four understand far more than we might think. They’re capable of problem-solving and experience “aha!” moments that can make others grin.
Kids often cut straight to the truth because they’re naturally curious. A 2025 study found that adults underestimate how organized children’s ideas can be. Like adults, kids’ beliefs shape how they act and feel, forming a worldview that is surprisingly detailed, consistent, and stable.
These young students’ advice may seem simple, but that’s exactly what makes it so powerful. They remind us that kindness and honesty don’t require much effort to make a lasting impact on any relationship. Sometimes the truth comes from the smallest voices, and Trevino understood the value of listening.
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