Bono and Jimmy Buffett have always been spokespersons for peace, love, and humanity. However, those are only ideals, and ideals don’t block bullets nor stop them from being fired. That being said, in 1996, Buffett and Bono found themselves in a firefight upon landing in Jamaica for a bite to eat together.
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It is unclear who was with Buffett and Bono in the aircraft upon their arrival. But when the two flew into Negril, Jamaica, things took a turn for the worse. In retrospect, given that there were no injuries, it’s both a humorous and epic rock and roll story. Well, to Jimmy Buffett, it was an epic story. To Bono, not so much. Regardless, here is how the decorated pair danced with death on a Jamaican runway!
Jimmy Buffett and Bono Almost Lost Their Lives to a Misunderstanding
When the pair arrived in Jamaica, gunshots immediately started to ring out through the air. The two rock stars took cover and stayed inside their plane. The pair were not undergoing a robbery or crime of any sort. Rather, they were the victims of a near-fatal misunderstanding.
The people shooting at the plane were Jamaican law enforcement officials, who believed that the plane Buffett and Bono were on was a drug smuggling aircraft. Specifically, they thought the plane was smuggling copious amounts of marijuana into the country.
“All I had on [the plane] was Bono,” Jimmy Buffett once assured Andy Cohen. “There [are] two rules in rock and roll I found: Never forget to duck, and never forget it can go to hell at any minute.”
“These boys were shooting all over the place,” Bono told the Belfast Telegraph. “I felt as if we were in the middle of a James Bond movie, only this was real.”
Jamaican law enforcement later confirmed that the incident was a complete misunderstanding and confirmed that the two were merely in the country to pick up some jerk chicken. The officials apologized and took full responsibility for putting the lives of Jimmy Buffett and Bono in danger. But, hey, that’s rock ‘n’ roll. The incident even inspired Buffett’s Grammy-nominated song, “Jamaica Mistaica”. Some good came out of the ordeal, after all.
Jimmy Buffett Performs At The Omni, Atlanta per Getty Images
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