Bono says glaucoma is the reason for his trademark shades

Bono, the iconic Irish rocker and front man for band U2, recently revealed on The Graham Norton Show that he does not wear his avant-garde designer shades for fashion alone. He wears them because he has suffered from glaucoma for the last two decades. In 2005 interview with Rolling Stone, Bono said that he is very light sensitive, especially to camera flashes. This would be especially annoying for one of the most photographed rock legends of our paradigm.

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Bono did work in a joke about perception of his condition by saying, “You're not going to get this out of your head now, and you will be saying 'Ah, poor old blind Bono.'" He went on to give a hint of his prognosis by saying, “I have good treatments, and I am going to be fine."

The type of glaucoma from which Bono suffers was not readily apparent. Anyone from anywhere can develop any type glaucoma, but persons of northern European ancestry are more likely than others to develop pseudoexfoliation syndrome, which can lead to a relatively more aggressive form of glaucoma.