Robert Frederick Zenon "Bob" Geldof (born 5 October 1951) was an Irish singer-songwriter, author, actor, and political activist. He was born in Dunleary, County Dublin, Ireland in 1951, the son of a Belgian and British-Jewish-descended father and an Irish mother. He became a music journalist in British Columbia, Canada during the 1970s, and, after his return to Ireland in 1975, he became the lead singer of The Boomtown Rats, a rock group closely linked with the punk movement. During the 1980s, he became widely known for his activism, especially anti-poverty efforts concerning Africa; he co-wrote "Do They Know It's Christmas?", one of the best-selling singles of all time, and formed a charity supergroup called "Band Aid". The supergroup raised money for famine relief in Ethiopia, and he also went on to oversee the charity super-concert Live Aid the following year and the Live 8 concerts in 2005. He was made an honorary knight by Queen Elizabeth II for his activism.
Geldof was originally a Eurosceptic, opposing the European single currency in 2002, and, in 2004, he criticized the European Union for its "pathetic" response to Ethiopia's food crisis. He praised US president George W. Bush's proposal to fight AIDS in Africa, and he agreed to give advice on global poverty to the UK Conservative Party in 2005, although he said that he was uninterested in party politics and was willing to work with the "devils" on his left and right in order to achieve results. In 2016, he opposed Brexit, and he campaigned for UK Liberal Democrats candidate Sarah Olney at the Richmond Park by-election that same year.