Chatshow king Graham Norton names 'nightmare' Hollywood guest who passed out drunk during the show

Graham Norton
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Graham Norton is the chat show king almost every star in the world wants to meet. But in a fresh insight into the success of his 26-year old talk show, the Irish funnyman has revealed how he owes his success to three divas for making his BBC One series a world-wide hit: Cher, Joan Collins and Dolly Parton. The trio helped put the comic firmly on the TV map by taking a chance to appear on early episodes when Graham kickstarted his career on Channel 4 in the late 1990s.

But despite having the three global stars on speed dial, Graham admits it's his 92-year-old mother Rhoda who is the first to call him and fiercely review his weekly chat show once it airs on a Friday night. Living in fear of his Irish mother's no-nonsense opinion, he admits: "My mother watches the show every Friday and every Saturday I get her review." There are only two of them. One will go, 'Saw the show last night...I thought it was alright.' That is the good review."

He went on: "If it is a bad review, she will say, 'Saw the show last night...How do YOU think it went?' So with parenting like that it is no surprise I seek the validation of strangers. It is as if there is a queue outside her house with people waiting to tell her how s**t her son's show was."

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Graham's highly anticipated BAFTA-winning show returns to BBC One on Friday, September 27, and features an impressive line-up of Hollywood A-listers, including actress Demi Moore, who is making her debut to talk about her role in critically acclaimed horror movie The Substance, pop superstar Lady Gaga and actor Colin Farrell.

Whatever happens on the night, Graham is ready for anything after steering his show through many awkward moments over the years, including the infamous moment when a tipsy Mark Wahlberg once jumped on his lap when he appeared way back in 2013.

Graham said: "It is very hard to get drunk on the show. We do give people a drink, yes. They get one and if there is a break between filming they might nip in and top up your glass and that is it." He added: "The most you get is two, maybe three, drinks in a show. If you want to be drunk on the show, and apparently some people do, you really need to arrive pre-liquored up."

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"I remember one time I was outside as Hollywood star Mickey Rourke arrived in his car and he stepped out holding a bottle of Jack Daniels. More worryingly it was half empty. It suddenly became clear where that Jack Daniels had gone. It was a nightmare."

"But the famous one was Mark Wahlberg, I guess. He was fine when he came on the show. There was not a hint of it and then about 20 minutes into the show it caught up with him. Oh it was bad. At one point Mark was asleep on the couch in front of the audience."

Graham let former Calvin Klein underwear model Wahlberg get away with his riotous behaviour, admitting he had a secret crush on the actor when he was younger. "What made the experience weirder for me was when I was younger I had a copy of Vanity Fair magazine and there was a photo of Mark Wahlberg in it taken by photographer Annie Leibovitz. To me this was the most erotic image I had ever seen. Imagine if someone had told the younger me that one day that man would sit on my lap and play with my nipples and I would find it annoying!"