James Corden Responds After Twitter Accuses Him of Stealing Ricky Gervais Joke
Another week, another apology from 'The Late Late Show' host.
It’s been a tough few weeks for James Corden, who was publicly banned—and then unbanned—from popular SoHo restaurant Balthazar by New York restaurant owner Keith McNally after being called out for mistreating the staff. He later offered an apology for his "rude" behavior on his talk show, The Late Late Show With James Corden.
But this time, he’s offering an explanation after Twitter users accused him of stealing a joke from comedian Ricky Gervais
It all started when the 44-year-old discussed Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter during a monologue, delivering the joke: “Because if someone puts up a poster in a town square that says 'Guitar lessons available,' you don't get people in the town going 'I don't wanna play the guitar! I wanna play the piano you piece of s**t!”
Twitter began buzzing with comparisons to Gervais' 2018 skit about the social media platform
"That's like going into a town square, seeing a big noticeboard, and there's a notice for guitar lessons, and you go 'But I don't f***ing want guitar lessons!'" he joked in his Netflix special Humanity.
One Twitter user even provided a side-by-side of the two clips so that fans could decide for themselves.
“Plagiarism? I don’t know what people are talking about, these two jokes by @JKCorden and @rickygervais are barely similar,” the caption read.
Gervais first addressed the issue, per Metro UK, responding to a fan in a now-deleted tweet who asked if Corden had permission to use the joke, noting, "No. I reckon one of the writers 'came up with it' for him.”
He even gave the late night talk show host the benefit of the doubt, reportedly adding, “I doubt he would knowingly just copy such a famous stand up routine word for word like that."
Corden later took to Twitter, simply stating: “Inadvertently told a brilliant Ricky Gervais joke on the show last night, obviously not knowing it came from him. It’s brilliant, because it’s a Ricky Gervais joke. You can watch all Ricky’s excellent specials on Netflix. J x”
Well, that settles that.
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