Graham Norton Recalls Losing Close Friend During Aids Epidemic

Graham Norton has recalled losing a close friend during the Aids epidemic.

The popular Irish chat show host reflected on living through the global health crisis, where he suffered the "big loss" of losing a close friend. 

Speaking to Jack Guinness on the Queerphoria podcast, Norton said that he arrived in San Francisco, California where the city had decided "to close all the saunas and sex clubs and things" in the early 1980s.

 "The fear of Aids had sort of taken over San Francisco", Norton explained. "So for me, that was a much more frightening place (than London) oddly. And then when I came to London, it was only starting to appear". 

The Cork native said that "official signs" used to hang in a London gay club with the following message: "Don't sleep with someone with an American accent". 

He also recalled how "people would just vanish" from the public eye during the Aids outbreak, before speaking about how these disappearances hit him personally following the loss of a "very good friend". 

He continued: "I remember mutual friends sort of sitting me down and telling me Sid was sick". 

"He was the big loss for me and for our little circle, he was the one who really made you think 'Oh my god'. 

"And it all came back to us when we got into Covid, that thing of that you’ve got to take responsibility of yourself and in doing that, you take responsibility for other people". 

"accepting"

Graham Norton also spoke of his delight that times have changed since that tumultuous period of the Aids epidemic, including the right for same sex couples to get married. 

The TV host and Father Ted star married Jonathan 'Jono' McLeod in West Cork in 2022. where his mother lives.

"No matter how accepting parents are and how much they love you and how much they don’t care that you’re gay and they support you in all your gay relationships, they are being robbed," he said.

"As parents they had an expectation that they one day might dance at your wedding". 

"Obviously, it’s great for us, we get to get married. But it’s great for all the people who love you, that they get to share in that stuff that for decades they believed could never happen".