James Corden Accused Of Stealing Jokes From A Much Funnier Comedian
James Corden has been accused of stealing a joke from Ricky Gervais, specifically from the special Humanity
This article is more than 2 years old
The Late Late Show host James Corden has had a rough month. He was recently banned from the New York City restaurant Balthazar after his allegedly abusive behavior toward the staff, and although the star was able to get the ban lifted after issuing an apology, he has now found himself in the midst of another controversy. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Corden has been called out by fellow comedian Ricky Gervais for stealing a joke of his during his Monday monologue.
James Corden poked fun at Elon Musk’s take-over of the popular social media platform Twitter saying, “When you see Elon Musk talk about Twitter, he does this thing where he goes, ‘It’s the town square. But it isn’t, because if someone puts up a poster in a town square that says ‘guitar lessons available,’ you don’t get people in town going: ‘I don’t wanna play the guitar’ But that sign wasn’t for you, it was for somebody else – you don’t have to get mad about all of it.” The excerpt from the comedian’s monologue on the October 31st episode of The Late Late Show was a nearly word-for-word duplication of a joke Ricky Gervais made in the 2018 Netflix special Humanity.
Gervais took to his Twitter page to share a clip from Corden’s show and wrote, “The bit about the town square advert for guitar lessons is brilliant.” Of course, most late-night shows have a team of writers dedicated to penning material for the hosts, so it’s quite unlikely Corden had anything to do with the joke, and more than likely, The Late Late Show wasn’t even aware of the joke’s existence.
Fortunately, being the stand-up guy he is, Ricky Gervais deleted the tweet after feeling sorry for James Corden and realizing he wouldn’t knowingly copy his material word for word like that.
Although James Corden took to Twitter to acknowledge Ricky Gervais had originated the joke about Elon Musk, he didn’t actually apologize for plagiarizing the comedian’s material. He tweeted, “Inadvertently told a brilliant Ricky Gervais joke on the show last night, obviously not knowing it came from him.” He then proceeded to direct his followers to the Gervais’ Netflix special Humanity where the joke was derived from.
This isn’t the first instance where Ricky Gervais has criticized The Late Late Show host. In his 2020 Golden Globes monologue, the Ghost Town star said: “The world got to see James Corden as a fat pussy. He was also in the movie Cats.”
James Corden may be in the clear after being accused of stealing jokes, but he’s still under fire for multiple confrontations between various employees at Balthazar. The owner of the restaurant, Keith McNally, took to Instagram to declare that Corden is “the most abusive customer” he’s encountered at his establishment in 25 years. In one of those incidents, James Corden complained of a hair in his food to his server, but it was after he’d already finished his main course.
The comedian was allegedly extremely rude to the server and demanded all of the drinks on his tab be comped to make up for the supposed hair in his food. James Corden even went as far as threatening to take to the world wide web to post a negative review if his demands weren’t met. A second incident saw The Late Late Show host barking at an employee after he was served with fries instead of a salad.
So far, James Corden has managed to avoid being canceled, but if his erratic behavior continues, the comedian may find himself without a job. As of late, the celebrity has been at the forefront of seemingly consistent backlash, and it’s no secret that fans are growing tired of his antics. At this point, he’d be best off laying low for awhile and not doing anything to stir up any additional controversy.
