James Corden said Tuesday that people in his native England believe he got axed as the host of CBS’s “The Late Late Show” ― and he can’t convince them otherwise. (Watch the video below.)
The comedian visited Jimmy Kimmel’s show on ABC nearly a year after his final episode on CBS, capping an eight-year reign that produced the popular “Carpool Karaoke” and “Crosswalk the Musical” segments.
Corden announced his decision to leave “The Late Late Show” in April 2022 and signed off for good on April 27, 2023, just days before a writers strike forced most talk shows to go dark. His jovial image had already taken a blow when he was he was accused of verbally abusing servers at Balthazar restaurant in Manhattan. He was also accused of stealing a joke by fellow British comedian Ricky Gervais.
It seems fellow Brits have a jaundiced eye regarding the circumstances of his departure now that he’s living again in London.
“People are very nice, but no one believes that I wasn’t fired,” Corden told Kimmel, prompting laughter. “I’ll be in a pub or something and people will be like ... ‘So why’d you come back?’”
Corden said he told the doubters that he wanted his son Max to have a relationship with his grandparents, echoing a previous explanation he gave involving all three of his children.
“People will honestly be like, ‘You don’t have to give me that [bleep], it’s fine mate. If you got fired, you got fired,’” Corden continued on “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” “Because nobody thinks that you would ever leave what is, let’s be honest, a cushy existence.”
Kimmel jokingly advised him to obtain a note from CBS confirming he left of his own free will.
“They don’t know what CBS is, so they’ll go, ‘Well that’s not a real thing.’” Corden replied. “And then I have to tell them what the show was and they’ll go, ‘Hang on, it was on at 12:30 at night? That’s a ridiculous time to put a TV show on.’”
Corden, whose wife and kids joined him for their first trip back to Los Angeles since bidding the city goodbye, was promoting his podcast “This Life of Mine” and a new play he stars in, “The Constituent.”
“It’s quite the pay cut,” he said of the latter.
Fast-forward to 3:55 for Corden’s difficulties with skeptical Brits: