Graham Norton: 'I drink if guests are dull'

Graham Norton: 'I drink if guests are dull'
Graham Norton: 'I drink if guests are dull' (Image credit: PA Wire/Press Association Images)

Graham Norton has confessed he gets drunk while hosting his BBC chat show if he finds his guests boring. The cheeky Irish presenter - who has interviewed celebrities including Ricky Gervais, Lily Allen and Kate Price on his sofa - made the revelation on US chat show Chelsea Lately. The Eurovision host told US chat show host Chelsea Handler: "It just keeps you interested, if a guest is being a bit boring you go: 'Ah wine, my friend', and then you perk up." He added: "I drink all the time. Anything you can see through I believe has fewer calories so white wine, vodka, champagne, gin, rum - the list is endless!" Graham also revealed: "Who has been drunk on the show? Mickey Rourke. "I happened to be waiting outside and I saw him get out of the car with a bottle of Jack Daniel's. "But how nice is Britain? On our show, the only thing they were worried about was the branding on the label. They didn't mind that he drank on the show, they just didn't want to advertise Jack Daniel's." Graham is in America to promote his new game show Most Popular and appears on Chelsea Lately on Tuesday on E! Entertainment at 10.30pm.

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 


An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.