Bob Geldof Biography Quotes 31 Report mistakes

Early Life and Beginnings
Robert Frederick Zenon Geldof was born on 5 October 1951 in Dun Laoghaire, County Dublin, Ireland. Raised in the suburban south of the city, he attended Blackrock College, a school that produced many figures in Irish public life. After school he worked and traveled, spending time in Canada where he wrote for the Vancouver-based music paper The Georgia Straight. Journalism sharpened his instinct for storytelling and sharpened the social conscience that would later define his public work. Returning to Ireland and then moving to London, he stepped decisively into music.

The Boomtown Rats
In 1975 Geldof formed The Boomtown Rats with friends from Dublin, including Garry Roberts, Johnnie Fingers (John Moylett), Pete Briquette (Patrick Cusack), Gerry Cott, and Simon Crowe. The band became part of the late-1970s new wave scene, finding major success in the United Kingdom. Their single Rat Trap reached number one in 1978, a landmark for an Irish rock act. The following year they topped the charts again with I Do not Like Mondays, a stark song Geldof wrote after a tragic school shooting in the United States. Known for his sharp tongue, political lyrics, and on-stage energy, he led the band through a string of hit singles and albums until the mid-1980s.

From Pop Star to Humanitarian
In late 1984, confronted by television reports of famine in Ethiopia, Geldof called fellow musician Midge Ure. Together they wrote Do They Know It is Christmas? and assembled Band Aid, a supergroup whose recording brought together artists including Bono, George Michael, Sting, members of Duran Duran, and many others. The record raised millions for famine relief and turned celebrity collaboration into a model for urgent fundraising.

The momentum led to Live Aid on 13 July 1985, a transatlantic concert staged at Wembley Stadium in London and JFK Stadium in Philadelphia. Working closely with concert promoter Harvey Goldsmith and a vast team of broadcasters and volunteers, Geldof used live television to link performances by Queen, U2, David Bowie, Madonna, and dozens more into an unprecedented day of global giving. His blunt on-air appeals became part of the event's legend. For these efforts he received an honorary knighthood (KBE) from Queen Elizabeth II in 1986, an honor he holds as an Irish citizen.

Music, Film, and Writing
Beyond The Boomtown Rats, Geldof pursued a solo career that produced critically noted albums and the UK hit The Great Song of Indifference in the early 1990s. Earlier, he had taken a memorable lead role in Alan Parker's 1982 film Pink Floyd The Wall, giving a stark performance as the character Pink conceived by Roger Waters. He also published a best-selling memoir, Is That It?, in 1986, recounting his youth, band years, and the frantic creation of Band Aid and Live Aid.

Entrepreneurship and Television
Alongside music, Geldof built a media career. With Charlie Parsons and Waheed Alli he co-founded the television production company Planet 24, which created popular programs such as The Big Breakfast in the 1990s. After selling Planet 24, he and Parsons retained rights to the survival format that became Survivor, which producer Mark Burnett brought to the United States, helping to reshape global reality television. This entrepreneurial streak supplemented his music and advocacy, and kept him involved in broadcasting on both sides of the camera.

Campaigns After Live Aid
Geldof remained a vocal campaigner on poverty, trade, and debt relief. He worked publicly alongside figures such as Bono and organizations tied to the Make Poverty History and ONE campaigns, pressing leaders to increase aid and cancel unsustainable debts. In 2005 he helped organize Live 8, a series of concerts timed to influence the G8 summit in Gleneagles. The events, again with Harvey Goldsmith's expertise and Midge Ure's partnership, aimed less at fundraising than at mobilizing public attention and political will. Geldof's ability to convene artists and leverage media made him a recurring presence in global debates about development.

Personal Life
Geldof married broadcaster and writer Paula Yates in the 1980s. They had three daughters, Fifi Trixibelle, Peaches, and Pixie. The couple's relationship collapsed in the mid-1990s when Yates began a relationship with Michael Hutchence of INXS, with whom she had a daughter, Tiger Lily. After Hutchence's death in 1997 and Yates's death in 2000, Geldof took responsibility for his daughters and later obtained guardianship of Tiger Lily, seeking stability for the children amid intense media attention. The family endured further tragedy with the death of Peaches in 2014. In 2015 Geldof married French actress Jeanne Marine, his partner of many years.

Later Music and Public Role
The Boomtown Rats reunited in the 2010s, performing live and releasing new material, including the album Citizens of Boomtown in 2020. Geldof continued to tour, speak, and write, using his platform to argue for practical, accountable aid and fairer global trade. Never shying from controversy, he has sparred with critics of aid as well as with policymakers, insisting that celebrity attention should be a gateway to sustained action rather than an end in itself.

Legacy
Bob Geldof's career spans chart-topping new wave, an iconic film role, bestselling authorship, and a striking run as a television entrepreneur. Yet his lasting global imprint arises from the partnership with Midge Ure that created Band Aid and the organizing with Harvey Goldsmith that made Live Aid and Live 8 cultural touchstones. Through these projects he brought together artists from Bono to George Michael and helped turn a generation's pop culture into a means of mass civic engagement. An Irish musician who turned the shock of a news bulletin into sustained activism, he showed how fame, when coupled with organization and persistence, could push humanitarian crises to the center of public life.

Our collection contains 31 quotes who is written by Bob, under the main topics: Music - Parenting - Equality - Honesty & Integrity - Resilience.

Other people realated to Bob: Freddie Mercury (Musician), Bono (Musician), Bill Graham (Politician)

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