Earlier this week, James Corden was trending on social media for all the wrong reasons. Keith McNally, a restaurateur with several major hotspots in New York, went on Instagram to announce that Corden was banned from Balthazar (a popular NYC restaurant) and all of McNally’s other eateries. McNally gave his reasons for 86-ing Corden, namely Corden’s tantrums and abuse towards waitstaff. Several hours after McNally’s initial IG post, he announced that Corden had gotten in touch and apologized, and that the ban was now rescinded. Weirdly, Corden seemed to handle it the right way – instead of a week-long story with a cascade of revelations about his rudeness, Corden apologized privately and then just ignored it. The story faded away, especially as so many other things happened this week.
Well, Corden was scheduled to sit down with a New York Times reporter to promote his new Amazon Prime miniseries Mammals. Corden didn’t cancel the interview, and they met at a New York breakfast hotspot, where Corden shrugged off the NYT’s questions about how he treats American waitstaff. Some highlights:
Overhearing another restaurant patron complain about their eggs: “Happens every day. It’s happening in 55,000 restaurants as we speak. It’s always about eggs. Can you imagine now, if we just blasted her on Twitter? Would that be fair? This is my point. It’s insane.”
Why he didn’t cancel this Times interview: “I haven’t done anything wrong, on any level. So why would I ever cancel this? I was there. I get it. I feel so Zen about the whole thing. Because I think it’s so silly. I just think it’s beneath all of us. It’s beneath you. It’s certainly beneath your publication.”
He didn’t address McNally’s IGs: At Thursday’s breakfast, Corden did not give his own account of what had happened in these incidents or discuss whether he had apologized. At first, he parried any discussion of McNally’s posts or the reaction to them. Asked if he was feeling all right, Corden cagily said: “About what? What do you mean?”
Corden didn’t read all of the stuff online: “I haven’t really read anything. It’s strange. It’s strange when you were there. I think I’m probably going to have to talk about it on Monday’s show. My feeling, often, is, never explain, never complain. But I’ll probably have to talk about it…. it feels like such a silly thing to talk about.”
Corden points out that most people probably aren’t even aware of the story: “Should we not all be a little grown-up about this? I promise you, ask around this restaurant. They don’t know about this. Maybe 15 percent of people. I’ve been here, been walking around New York, not one person’s come up to me. We’re dealing in two worlds here. If I lived on Twitter, Hillary Clinton is the president of the United States and Jeremy Corbyn won by a landslide.”
He also bizarrely compared social media as being like a school principal giving a microphone to school bullies, which… I mean, yes, the voices of bullies are amplified on social media, but Corden is being accused of screaming at waitstaff. One could say that he’s a bully too. As for all of this… at a PR-level, of course Corden is doing the right thing. He’s not hiding, he’s keeping up his work commitments, he has the completely appropriate perspective that “what people say on Twitter” isn’t always real life. But again, he knows that he’s a douchebag! He’s aware of the conversations! That’s why he apologized to Keith McNally within hours of McNally’s first post going up. Just because Corden is good at image-management doesn’t mean that he gets to shrug off his poor treatment of service workers.
Okay, after Keith McNally (owner of Balthazar) read this NYT piece, he re-banned Corden. What a nutty story.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid.
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- Los Angeles, CA – Comedian/actor/TV host, James Corden arrives at the red carpet event for Carpool Karoake Pictured: James Corden BACKGRID USA 12 MAY 2022 BYLINE MUST READ: D-STAR / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Los Angeles, CA – Comedian/actor/TV host, James Corden arrives at the red carpet event for Carpool Karoake Pictured: James Corden BACKGRID USA 12 MAY 2022 BYLINE MUST READ: D-STAR / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
Christ, what an asshole.
If he thought this NYT piece would make people view him more favorably, he severely miscalculated.
Seconding Christ what an asshole.
Just the post title made me not favorable to him. Im so disappointed by his behaviour, it’s like a slap in the face.
friend of a friend worked at his production company, and this apparetly is just the tip of the iceberg. people don’t tend to work for him for very long.
People 😔
Doesn’t he browbeat wait staff in multi-star, world-renowned restaurants? That qualifies as complaining and (maybe) explaining. Dig your hole deeper, why don’t you, Corden?
To quote Snape, “he’s so arrogant that criticism simply bounces off him”.
Balthazar’s guy just came back with “I have no wish to kick a man when he’s down, but I believe the best way for James Corden to retrieve some of the vast respect the public had for him before this incident is to own up to it and apologize to the young servers he abused. If he’s big enough to do that, he can eat free at Balthazar for the rest of the year.”
I doubt Big James will be ordering at Balthazar’s any time soon. Really quite the Ellen he turned out to be!
i love that he just got re-banned for this. FUCK YOUR FAKE APOLOGY, JAMES!
What a f-ing nob.
Never explain, never complain. Never treat servers with respect. He’s a bad person. Periodt.
This interview makes me even MORE certain that he’s an entitled bully.
James Corden is, and always has been a prize A cockwomble. I was absolutely amazed when he blagged his way into his present gig, but I was even more amazed that it took so long for the general populace in the US to learn what has been well known in the UK for years! He will adopt new disguises as necessary to cloak his awful arrogance, but will never be otherwise. It is known!
Cockwomble is a wonderful insult that I will adapt in to my vocabulary immediately!
Thought same!
Yep I remember reading that he was known in Britain to be just horrible
All he had to say was “hey, I’m not proud of my behaviour and I’m sorry. I spoke to the restauranteur and I apologised. He couldn’t do it. What an egomaniac.
It is such a ginormous red flag to me when a person will never, under any circumstances, apologize to another person. I have so much more respect for those who own up to what they did and just freaking say they were sorry.
In my experience, the non-apologizers turn out to be horrible people overall.
Ain’t it the truth, Lorelei. Smdh
There are so many stories about him like this, throwing his weight about like a brat. It’s one thing to complain, let the restaurant know if they got your order wrong so it can be put right, etc. Nothing wrong in that provided you are calm and polite. It’s raising your voice and berating the (usually young and female) wait staff that marks you out as a bully.
There’s no excuse for Corden’s behavior, but I agree with Kaiser that this is the way to deal with it from a PR standpoint.
McNally has a weird habit of getting himself in the headlines via social media when it’s not obvious it serves his restaurants (I mean, in this case, he told the world his kitchen messed up twice). He remains a supporter of Woody Allen & got in hot water when he put up a wholly unnecessary post comparing Ghislaine Maxwell to Mary Magdalene.
Poor treatment of wait and cleaning staff is one thing I just cannot abide. The fact that he thinks it is ok because someone sitting near him is also treating staff poorly is just mind boggling. I wish he would get canceled .
But also, its not necessarily poor behavior to point out a mistake. If I ordered scrambled eggs and got fried, I would suck it up and eat the fried eggs. but my husband HATES fried eggs so if that were him, he would say “Hi, I think there’s been a mistake, I ordered scrambled.” and in 99.9% of cases the server would say “oh I’m sorry let me take care of that for you.” And that kind of mistake does not affect how we tip (bc maybe the server put it in wrong, maybe the kitchen messed up, maybe we got someone else’s order, oh well, these things happen.)
I can’t tell from this article if the other table complaining about their eggs is being rude about it or not. But it sounds like from the original Corden story that he was a total ahole about it, which is different than just saying “hey we noticed…”
It is always OK to complain if you get a wrong dish or if there is something wrong with it. It’s HOW you do it that makes a difference.
But I’m just like you, I usually say it’s OK, I’ll eat this, if it is not something I completely dislike. Mistakes happen.
I completely agree. I still cannot stand Ruby Rose after the story about her french fry-throwing meltdown.
Why did he apologise if he thinks he hasn’t done anything wrong “On any level”?
Right. And its rich that he’s repeating the supposed credo of royalty. What trash.
Never complain never explain but all he f’g does is complain. He’s a giant douche and I wish he and his ‘never having an original thought’ buddy/producer BW would leave this country.
Tangentially, if you are who you’re friends with, it makes me wonder about the supposed nice guy friends he has and how nice they really are
All of the people who proudly pronounce that they “never complain, never explain” are the exact ones who never STFU with the complaining.
He is a total douche. My friend works at Prada in London and he said the only celebrity who’s acted like a total a-hole was Corden. Same pattern: yelling at the staff, being unreasonable and demanding. This was several years ago too.
This is actually something a lot of right wing people have figured out – just ignore it and it will go away. There’s no shame anymore, politicians mostly don’t resign in disgrace (unless you’re a woman, poc, or left wing), the news cycle is such that it’s onto to the next – not even newsworthy but clickworthy item and everyone forgets. Just ignore it, nobody will hold you accountable, and it goes away.
He’s so defensive! And he says he didn’t do anything wrong on any level? Why did he apologize then? Ugh I get bad vibes from him. So smug and angry.
“Can you imagine if she blasted her on twitter?”…really, that’s your excuse? The difference is that Corden is a high profile public figure, by choice by the way, whose actions will be scrutinized by his followers, press and the “pulbic” in general. And besides, just because you are a celebrity, it doesn’t give you the right to act that way, whether it be an exclusive restaurant or a super market, department store or whatever. Do not complain or relent how you are being scrutinized even in your ordinary activities not in front of the camera, that is the price youi pay for doing business when you chose to be a public figure. Either change your behavior of wear a disguise and eat in private.
Yes and the whole “how many ppl here know about my assholery” argument was completely nonsensical. Just because there are people out there who don’t deign to click on an article with your name doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Twitter didn’t make you a jerk—you WERE a jerk.
I also disagree that he handled it well from a PR perspective. That’s level 4 gaslighting and he, like fellow narcissist Olivia Wilde, didn’t expect to get called out (again). It’s like, YOU apologized to the restaurant owner, you have something to be sorry about, you did something wrong, end of story. If it was in the news cycle, a good reporter WILL ask you about it, so don’t try to evade the question by claiming it is “beneath” their publication, my goodness. Typical gaslighter trying to make someone feel stupid for asking the right questions.
His example also just doesn’t really make any sense. IDK if any of you saw that airplane passenger who went viral last weekend for throwing a screaming tantrum on a plane (and then literally throwing a water bottle at another passenger for filming her), but her name and fb photos were published before she even got home from the airport after she was thrown off the plane.
She might not be as well-known as James here, but imo, her life is ruined, since anyone who ever Googles her, whether it be a potential employer or date or whatever, will see footage of her screaming profanities at an airplane full of people. Sure it’s on a smaller scale, but poor behavior in public has its consequences no matter who you are.
Keith McNally is lovely. That is all.
Oh man, he had such a bad reputation in Britain before coming here. I knew him from a few appearance in my favorite Sci-Fi show “Doctor Who”. He was so good but he had a rep for being a jerk. But man he has really validated that British entertainment was right to basically run him out of the country. The arrogance is so large it creates its own orbit around the sun!
F8ck James Corden. He’s an abusive bully with a large ego and raging insecurities. And he’s NOT talented. Only he can turn a bad movie into something incredibly awful by just being in it (Cats). God bless him. He has that talent to bring everything down. He may have apologized to McNally, but HE DID NOT apologize to the two servers he humiliated.
And while we’re on the topic of belligerent, bullying behavior. I have seen some awful behavior leveled at the people who worked at grocery stores, Dunkin, Starbucks, pharmacies, dry cleaners, retail stores as well as restaurants — the service industry — especially during the pandemic. At times, I defended the person behind the counter — other times I had restrain myself from hitting the rude customer. Ugh. I cannot stand rude and abusive customers.
I noted in McNally’s tweet when he first banned Cordon that there was a phrase that made me think that Cordon had called and apologized while doing it in such a way that it put McNally and the servers on a lower plain of existence. I’m not surprised that McNally banned him again because he says and believes he dis nothing wrong. This is a case of someone who now has enough money that he believes everyone must bow down to him. Why in the world did he come to America with that attitude? That was never going to work for him here.
I’m glad Corden was re-banned. If I ever see him in the streets of New York City, I’ll call him an asshole. I remember there was a time when Matt Lauer had mentioned when anyone saw him in the street, they’d yell out, “Fuck you, Matt Lauer.” I once saw him in a restaurant and I was with my family. I so badly wanted to shout out, “Fuck you, Matt Lauer,” but I did not because my family was there. There’s a part of me that has always wanted to re-do that because he so deserved it. They say in life you regret the things you do not do, rather than the ones you do. I understand that.
That’s celebrities for you. Whatever happens, in their mind it’s never their fault, someone (media, fans, paps, other industry players) are out to get them and bring them down, but they themselves are never wrong and can never do wrong. It’s all “misinterpreted with malice” for them. They just can’t admit to themselves that they can be full blown A-holes completely out of touch with reality.
Humility is a more precious commodity than energy these days.
What do you want to bet he HIRED & PLANTED the other egg-complaining lady at the restaurant!