Graham Norton, 57, reveals lockdown made him reevaluate his plans to retire

He’s had an illustrious TV and radio career spanning almost 30 years.

And Graham Norton has revealed lockdown has made him reevaluate his plans to retire after he realised that work had taken on a new ‘importance’ to him.

In a new interview with Radio Times, the presenter, 57, admitted that stepping out of the limelight ‘isn’t the dream’ anymore following months of reflection while at home.

The Eurovision host, who recently moved to Virgin radio after a decade at Radio 2, noted that his initial plan was to retire and read lots of books, but being in lockdown had allowed him to do just that without giving up work.

He explained: ‘I had in my head that I wanted to wind down – at Radio 2 I was thinking of stopping or doing less. I thought I wanted to sit around and read books, but suddenly I had a lot of time to read books and I thought, “Well, maybe this isn’t the dream”.

‘I realised in lockdown work isn’t just work – it’s this great thing that focuses your day. It took on an importance for me that I didn’t think it had before.’

Meanwhile, despite having his fingers in many pies as a TV and radio presenter, chat-show host and author, Graham is adamant that he isn’t a workaholic.

He said: ‘If you saw me 24 hours a day you’d think, “He doesn’t appear to be moving!” Most of my work you either see or hear, but that’s about seven hours a week. I don’t feel like a stressed-out workaholic.’

The star went on to say that in regards to work, he just ‘gets on with it’ and doesn’t ‘build it up’ or spend hours ‘worrying’ about his jobs. 

Graham also told how he ‘wasn’t looking’ for a new job before Virgin Radio offered him a position, adding that he was shocked at himself for leaving Radio 2 as he was ‘so lazy’.

Graham’s works come as he revealed the annual publishing of BBC’s high earners influenced his decision to leave Radio 2.

The broadcaster has lashed out at the annual publishing of BBC stars’ high salaries, branding the practice both ‘pointless’ and ‘rubbish’. 

He also admitted that he looks forward to no longer having his earnings published for public consumption – a factor that contributed in his decision to leave. 

In an interview with The Sun this month, Graham – who most recently placed third after Gary Lineker and Zoe Ball with a £729,999 pay packet – criticised the fact that the list doesn’t comprehensively cover the earnings of employees. 

He told the publication: ‘The high earners list, which I didn’t like being on, hey, now I’m not. So to that extent it made me go, but that was a bonus of leaving, it wasn’t the biggest driving force.

‘The list is rubbish. It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t tell you what people are earning because of how people are paid, which is why so many radio people are on that list.

‘It is pointless, but if they weren’t publishing it, there wouldn’t be that many women on it. When they first published it, they were properly embarrassed there were so few women on it. I think that list will become more diverse over the next few years.’