Graham Norton on losing ‘good friend’ during the Aids epidemic

The Irish chat show host said he arrived in San Francisco, California, when 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 told Jack Guinness on the Queerphoria podcast.

“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 Graham Norton Show host said he recalled “official signs” hanging in a London gay club which read: “Don’t sleep with someone with an American accent”.

The 61-year-old also remembered that “people would just vanish” from his social circle during the outbreak, before the disappearances hit closer to home with “a very good friend”.

“I remember mutual friends sort of sitting me down and telling me Sid was sick,” Norton said.

“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.”

Norton married Jonathan “Jono” McLeod in 2022 in West Cork – where his mother resides.

“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.”

Queerphoria is available on all podcast providers.