Bono always wears a different shade of tinted eyeglasses, but the stylish eyewear does more than improve his look.
The U2 frontman has worn the specialized glasses for the last years because he suffers from chronic eye condition, glaucoma. He revealed the health news while appearing on BBC1's "The Graham Norton Show" with his band mates.
"This is a good place to explain to people that I've had glaucoma for the last 20 years. I have good treatments and I am going to be fine," Bono said.
Glaucoma damages the eye's optic nerve and can cause vision loss and blindness. Early detection and treatment can help patients avoid serious vision impairment, according to the National Eye Institute.
The lead singer never felt he needed eye exams because he had perfect vision. He then learned his perfect vision as well as "strange visions," rings around lights and the appearance of steam coming into the room could be signs of the debilitating disease.
"Once now you have this information, you're never going to be able to get it out of your head," Bono told Norton. "You're just going to say, 'There's poor, old blind Bono."
U2 appeared on the show to promote their new album "Songs of Innocence." The band released the album for free to iTunes 500 million subscribers, a move that proved controversial.
"We wanted to do something fresh, but it seems some people don't believe in Father Christmas," Bono said.
The Dublin native addressed the situation during a Facebook Q&A on Oct. 15. He apologized for the stunt release that caused iTunes to provide instructions on how to delete the album for users' accounts.
"I had this beautiful idea and we got carried away with ourselves. Artists are prone to that kind of thing. Drop of megalomania, touch of generosity, dash of self-promotion, and deep fear that these songs that we poured our life into over the last few years mightn't be heard," he said during the Q&A.
