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Tax-rogue rocker Bono has hit back at critics of his financial affairs, asking: “I mean, come on, would people prefer I die broke?”

The U2 frontman, 57, worth an estimated £534million, campaigns against poverty, but has been dubbed the “Samaritan who avoids the taxman”.

He said: “I’ve been writing about my own hypocrisy for 20 years.

“But the hypocrisy of the human heart is so much more interesting than a rock’n’roll band trying to take its financial affairs seriously.”

(Image: AFP) (Image: PA)

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Bono was named in the Paradise Papers, with reports claiming he used a Malta-based firm to buy a share in a shopping centre in Lithuania.

He said he was a “passive, minority investor”.

Bono previously defended U2’s decision to base a firm in the Netherlands, saying it was accountants “trying to be sensible about the way we’re taxed”.

He said people were accusing U2 of not being “idealists” despite their “campaigns of social justice”.

He said: “It won’t wash. A lot of people might just not like us and try to find reasons to explain it.”