Stephen Fry rushed to hospital after shocking fall

21 Sep 2023
Stephen Fry

Actor and comedian Stephen Fry has been rushed to hospital after an alarming mishap that left him suffering serious injuries.

Fry was the keynote speaker at an AI and tech CogX Festival in eastern London when he fell two meters to the floor at the end of his speech.

The 66-year-old suffered leg and rib injuries and was rushed to a local hospital.

“We were called today at 11.31am to reports of an incident at the O2 Arena, in Peninsula Square,” a London Ambulance Service spokesperson said, without confirming the patient’s identity.

“We sent a medic in a fast-response car, an ambulance crew, and an incident response officer to the scene.”

Eyewitnesses have claimed the stage was poorly lit and there was no handrail. CogX Festival organisers and Greenwich Council have both launched an investigation into last Thursday’s incident.

Authorities are also investigating.

A source claimed it seemed as though it was “too dark” in the venue.

“He fell two metres to the floor. He looked to have been hurt as he had to leave in a wheelchair,” one source has told local media.

Neither Fry nor his management has made any public statement on the accident. His current condition is unknown, although he reportedly remains in hospital.

The star is the host of game show QI, which is broadcast on the ABC. He is also due to host the Nine Network’s new game show, Jeopardy!, next year.

With more than 500 speakers and about 90,000 attendees, the CogX Festival is a prominent event in the AI and tech community.

Fry had spoken about AI, revealing a documentary had used the emerging tech to recreate his voice for a narration without his permission.

“I said not one word of that — it was a machine,” he said.

“Yes, it shocked me. They used my reading of the seven volumes of the Harry Potter books, and from that dataset, an AI of my voice was created and it made that new narration.”

Fry said the tech allowed words to be modulated to fit the meaning of a sentence.

“It could therefore have me read anything from a call to storm Parliament to hard porn, all without my knowledge and without my permission. And this, what you just heard, was done without my knowledge,” he said.

-with agencies

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