Amazingly, he says it changed his life for the better

Eurovision fever is upon us. Well, it’s upon us. And that means Irish comedian, broadcaster, actor and presenter Graham Norton is back with his trademark witty commentary, bolder than ever.

There are many things about Graham you might not know. For example, that Norton is a professional name, not the name he was born with.

Or that he married filmmaker Jono McLeod in relative secrecy, just three years ago. Attendants at the West Cork wedding party enjoyed entertainment from drag queen Panti Bliss as DJ and Irish dancing group Cairde.

Or that he lost “half” his blood in a near-fatal London stabbing incident in 1989…

He chose Norton to be his stage name when he joined the actors’ union Equity (Credit: The Graham Norton Show/YouTube)

Stabbing that saw Eurovision host Graham Norton almost lose his life

Long before Irish comedy sensation Graham Norton reached the lofty heights of TV stardom he currently enjoys, he moved to London to attend the Central School of Speech and Drama.

Two years into his degree, he suffered a near-fatal stabbing attack. He was about 26 at the time. It was 1989.

He told the Telegraph in 2024 that he lost half his 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?’

“And 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?’”

She paused, which Graham understandably found unnerving. He described the incident, between the actual attack and the aftermath, as the worst moment of his life. And yet he’s still able to glean a positive from it.

He’s well into his second decade commentating on the Eurovision Song Contest (Credit: The Graham Norton Show/YouTube)

Getting stabbed changed Graham Norton’s life for the better

At the time, he was going into his third year at university. His studies involved auditions and callbacks and castings, and there was a lot of pressure on everyone to perform at their best.

It got to his classmates. He described scenes in which they would run crying into toilets and slam doors. Meanwhile, almost losing his life put everything into perspective for Graham.

“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.”

Since then, Graham’s career has gone from success to success. His comedy drag act shocked the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1992, and he was part of the Channel 4 ecosystem by the late 1990s.

His BBC career began in 2005, and he took over as commentator for the main British broadcast of the Eurovision Song Contest in 2009. He hasn’t looked back, and nor have we.