Graham Norton revealed he had his appendix removed as a child after lying that he felt unwell

Graham Norton revealed he had his appendix removed as a child for no reason after lying to his mother that he felt unwell in order to skip school. 

Appearing on Mel Giedroyc’s new show Unforgivable on Tuesday, the presenter, 57, confessed he had the organ removed after his lie was a little too convincing.

He remained committed to the aged just seven or eight, with his mother seeking a medical opinion.

But his plan backfired when the doctors said he had appendicitis and he’d need the organ removed, an operation he went ahead with.  

Graham confessed he’d only ‘very recently’ told his mother about his lie.

He said: ‘So we go to the doctor, he’s examining me, I go, “ow,” and he said to go and sit in the waiting room. I’m thinking, “this is awful, he’s in there now telling my mother there is nothing wrong with me, I’m going to get in such trouble.” 

‘I come back in and he says, “you’ve got something called appendicitis and so you’ll be going into hospital to have your appendix out.”‘ 

Graham added: ‘So now I’m thinking I’m really f**ked because either I have an operation that I don’t need or I tell this doctor that there is nothing wrong with me and I’ve got two very angry adults in the room.’ 

The chat show host said that he ‘had the operation’ and joked that children ‘had to commit’ to their lies.  

He said: ‘You’ve got to commit I always feel and that’s the mistake other children make. They don’t commit to their lie. I was keeping people employed.’ 

The new Dave TV show sees celebrities competing to convince Mel that they’re the most unforgivable person in the room by revealing their outrageous anecdotes. 

He also told the tale of how he once insulted Jessica Chastain’s acting to her face after he got the wrong end of the stick during a conversation backstage at his chat show. 

Graham was asked about awkward encounters he’d had with his guests and told how Jessica had been set to appear and had been chatting to him ahead of the show, backstage. 

She was talking about how ‘bad’ she was in Crimson Peak, a movie in which she starred with Tom Hiddleston.

Graham had thought the film was awful. He told Mel on Thursday night: ‘I thought I should say something so I went: “Oh well you’re not that bad!”’

He explained that Jessica then said: ‘I mean I play a bad person.’

Graham went on: ‘I thought: “I can’t backtrack now!”’  

He revealed in a previous interview that 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, Graham 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.’

Mel Giedroyc’s Unforgivable airs on Tuesdays at 10PM on Dave.