Did a Journalist ‘Ambush’ Interview a Bono Impersonator Instead of Bono?

Journalist Jason Mattera is known for conducting ambush interviews, which basically means he tries to walk up to public officials with a camera and a mic and catch them off guard, like he did with Bono. Well, like he thought he did with Bono.

Mattera was convinced he scored quite a coup when he ran into the U2 frontman and grilled him on whether he “raids” the funds in his poverty programs and if U2 moved its publishing company from Ireland to The Netherlands to avoid paying taxes on their song royalties. As you can see, Bono’s deflecting of the questions casts the singer in a bad light.

After watching this video, however, U2 fans were probably thinking that something was amiss. And they’re probably right. As it turns out, it probably wasn’t the real Bono Mattera was interviewing, but rather Bono impersonator Pavel Sfera. According to Media Matters, a Bono impersonator was present at the time of the interview and was dressed exactly like the man in the video.

Nevertheless, Mattera seemed to have been completely duped. The video was posted on Breitbart.com, and when Mattera was asked how he got such a big star on camera he cockily responded, “basic shoeleather journalism.” Or not. Once Bono was thought to be a fake, the video was pulled from most sites, including YouTube.

What’d you think? Was it Sfera being interviewed or not?

[via New York Magazine]