Graham Norton was once stabbed and left for dead in a horrific mugging. However, the TV presenter has said that this ordeal changed his life for the better.
The Cork native made these comments in a recent interview, where he reflected on this traumatic incident, which saw him lose half his blood.
Norton was stabbed in the chest, as he walked home in Kilburn, northwest London in 1989. He was a drama student at the time.
The Father Ted star also revealed that he was unaware that he had been stabbed as the adrenaline took over, adding that he only realised the severity of his injuries, when he looked down and saw the blood.
“all just trauma”
Graham Norton explained that he did not think he was going to survive the attack, saying that he even begged a stranger to hold his hand as he did not want to die in the street alone.
The presenter was thankfully saved by an elderly couple, who called an ambulance.
Despite the incident taking place almost four decades ago, it has unsurprisingly had a profound effect on Norton.
“Getting stabbed in 1989. I lost half my blood. The bad moment I remember – because when it’s happening, is all just trauma – but then the morning after I was in the hospital ward and I remember a nurse came up to me and said, ‘Do you want us to contact anyone? Do you want us to contact your parents?”, Norton said, reflecting on the worst experience of his life.
“annoyed I didn’t tell them”
Sat up in his hospital bed, Graham Norton was hesitant about informing his parents of his horrific ordeal.
“In my head, I was thinking, ‘Well, I don’t want to worry my parents but equally if I’m going to die, they’d probably like to come and say goodbye to me because they’d be annoyed if I didn’t tell them.’ So I said to the nurse, ‘Am I going to die?’ And she went, ‘Erm…’ And I was like, ‘Don’t pause. This is not the place to pause. This is quite serious”.
He also added, “So that was bad. But the positive of it was I was probably in my mid to late 20s. I was going into a third-year drama school, there were a lot of people crying and running into toilets and slamming doors. And I was just sitting there going, ‘I’m alive. I’m good. I’m golden.’ So, in a way, it kind of changed my life for the better”.
In a double whammy, Norton also revealed that his boyfriend at the time broke up with him the next day, which he admits “wasn’t the most tactful piece of timing”.
In a previous interview, Graham Norton revealed that this was also not his sole encounter with a knife, having been threatened with the dangerous weapon outside a nightclub some years later.
However, there were people around, and nobody was harmed.
Graham Norton has subsequently gone on to better things. Following his breakthrough role in Father Ted, he is renowned for hosting his own talk show, The Graham Norton Show.
Later this month Norton will also host the new original comedy series: LOL: Last One Laughing Ireland, featuring some of Ireland’s biggest comedy talent.
