Graham Norton on December 4, 2018 in London, England. (David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty)
Graham Norton was afraid that he was going to die after he lost half his blood in a horrific stabbing in 1989.
The Irish talkshow host opened up about the terrifying experience in an interview with author Adam Kay for his new book in which celebrities share their stories about their positive experiences with the NHS.
Kay told Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby about the incident during an appearance on This Morning.
“Graham Norton, who tells the most extraordinary story, he has been the fixture in our lives for decades and you think you know someone,” he said.
“As a drama student for the first time and he got stabbed, not a bit stabbed, he got really stabbed.”
Graham Norton recalled being stabbed in 1989 and praised the NHS for its response.
The author told the This Morning hosts that Norton had just moved to London to study drama when the horrific incident occurred.
Kay said Norton described the NHS “as the safety net to catch us when we fall”.
“There’s this chilling section where he asks this nurse, ‘Am I going to die?’
“And the long pause that the nurse gave before her response made his flesh hug his bones.”
Speaking to The Guardian last year about the stabbing, Norton said it was “the most formative thing that ever happened” to him.
There’s this chilling section where he asks this nurse, ‘Am I going to die?’ And the long pause that the nurse gave before her response made his flesh hug his bones.
“It gave me real perspective on life and what mattered,” he revealed.
“Before that I was at drama school, caught up in the search for success. I went back to drama school and people were slamming doors because of the roles they got and I was like: ‘Uh, I nearly died. I’m just really happy to be alive.’
“Now if I get worried about something, I can put it into perspective,” he continued.
He previously said knife crime happens because people are ‘dehumanised’ by a lack of empathy.
He previously told The Mirror that knife crime happens because people are “dehumanised”.
“People are losing their lives and equally, the stabbing people, their life is destroyed for nothing, for this stupid thing because they couldn’t get their heads around the consequences,” Norton said.
“If you had the empathy, that level of imagination to think it through, that the person you’re stabbing could be a brother, friend, sister, mother or father, you wouldn’t do it.
“Somehow people have been dehumanised,” he continued.
He also said he believes knife crime is “more about economics than modern society”.
“It’s about people with nothing and if you’ve got nothing to lose, that’s a really scary place to be.”