Graham Norton recently reflected on a harrowing experience from the 1980s when he was stabbed and left for dead in London. Recounting the incident, Norton remarked, “no failure compares to dying,” highlighting the gravity of the near-fatal attack that led to his hospitalization.
Earlier this year, Irish TV host Graham Norton bravely shared details of a traumatic experience from 1989 when he was involved in a knife attack, resulting in him losing “half [his] blood.”
In an interview, the 61-year-old revealed that it was the worst moment of his life.
“Getting stabbed in 1989. I lost half my blood,” he began. “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?’.
Growing up in Cork, he was unaware of the severity of the situation during the knife attack in 1989. He also didn’t realize he was reportedly on the brink of death at the time.
“I didn’t know I was dying, I didn’t figure it out until later,” he revealed on a podcast last year, as per the source. “This is so not me but I remember saying to this little old lady ‘Will you hold my hand’?”
“And it was a flicker on her face of ‘oh do I want to hold his hand’ but she did and she held out her hand.
“I held her hand and I think that’s something so deep within us and it motivates so much of our life that we don’t want to die alone.”
The BBC presenter also shared that the horrific ordeal gave him a “really good attitude to risk and to failure.”
He emphasized that while he doesn’t recommend anyone go through such an ordeal, he acknowledged that it had “changed [his] life for the better.”
