Graham Norton opens up about struggle as young gay man growing up in rural Ireland… – The Irish Sun
GRAHAM Norton has opened up about his struggle as a young gay man growing up in rural Ireland.
The TV star revealed that instead, he travelled to the States hoping to meet a pen pal “to show me the ropes”.
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Graham, 58, said: “I never came out. It didn’t seem practical.
“Living in a small town in rural Ireland in the early eighties there was no context for me to be gay in, so why tell anyone?
“I would just have been gay watching afternoon TV or riding my bike into town.
“With no prospect of being gay in the very important boy meets boy scenario, I felt it would just have upset everyone without any real benefit.
“Instead, I resolved to go to where the boys were. My plan was to take my J1 visa from university and travel to Los Angeles for the summer.
GRAHAM’S PLAN
“I had a pen pal there, David Villapando, who had revealed in his letters that not only was he gay but that he was doing something about it. In fact, he was doing quite a lot about it.”
Graham grew up in Bandon, Co Cork and admitted that he couldn’t express his sexuality properly until he left for America, encouraged by his friend’s letters.
He said: “Every month or so I would receive what was essentially handwritten porn on thin blue airmail paper. It seemed that David would be the perfect person to show me the ropes.
“I know it seems ridiculous that the closest gay person I could find was five thousand miles away, but subconsciously, that was probably how I wanted it.”
The telly presenter joined other high-profile figures such as Sir Elton John to contribute to the new book The Queer Bible, which saw Graham pay tribute to American writer Armistead Maupin.
FAILED PLAN
He said that even though his plan failed – he didn’t eventually reach his pal – it was still something of an awakening for Graham after he made it to San Francisco.
He said: “As I stepped bleary and aching from the bus with my backpack weighing heavily, a flatbed truck came around the corner with three drag queens waving and screaming on the back of it.
“Obviously, I knew that the city had a reputation for being gay, but nonetheless, this seemed a little overstated. It transpired that I had arrived on the day of Gay Pride.
“I walked up to Market Street and watched the parade go by. Actual Grace Jones was on a float singing to me. My Irish head and heart were close to bursting.
“In amongst the drag queens, leather daddies and grey-haired proud parents marching in solidarity with their children, I remember seeing some placards with the initials AIDS on them.
“When asked, the pleasant woman standing beside me on the sidewalk explained happily, ‘Oh, it’s a bad disease they get.’ I had a vague recollection of reading something about it deep inside the Cork Examiner. A type of cancer, I thought.
“Other groups on the parade were angry that the city had forced the bath houses to shut their doors.
“The day had slowly turned from being a celebration of pride to a closing-down party. Short of money and with no more ticket to ride, I never did get to LA.”