Bono apologized Sunday after allegations surfaced that the U2 frontman's charity, ONE, had a culture of bullying and abuse at its South African office.
Allegations include name calling, putting staff to work on domestic tasks and sexual intimidation, NBC News reported.
While ONE did not corroborate all of the accusations in a Daily Mail article including the sexual intimidation allegation, it said Friday that its own investigation had discovered evidence of "unprofessional conduct" in the Johannesburg office between 2011 and 2015, NBC News reported.
Bono told the Daily Mail, "I hate bullying, can't stand it. The poorest people in the poorest places being bullied by their circumstances is the reason we set up ONE." He promised to meet the victims in person.
The organization's own investigation also found that management did not adequately address the actions or inform its board of directors properly, NBC News reported. Members of the board included former British Prime Minister David Cameron, COO of Facebook Sheryl Sandberg, MTV co-founder Tom Freston, and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers.
Current chief executive of ONE Gayle Smith said, "We do not discount any allegation—we investigate them and will continue to do so should others arise," NBC News reported.
ONE was founded in 2004 with the goal to "end extreme poverty and preventable disease, particularly in Africa," NBC News reported. Other offices of ONE, including in Washington, D.C., New York, London, Brussels, Berlin, Paris, Ottawa, and Abuja, Nigeria were not implicated in any of the allegations.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.