Celebrity

Eight times ‘tiny cretin of a man’ James Corden made us cringe into oblivion

Oct 22 2022
Written by Charlie Duncan

We regret to inform you James Corden is at it again. (Getty/Netflix/Sky)

National hero turned international villain James Corden was banned from a famed New York restaurant on Monday (17 October) after allegedly being rude to staff and demanding free drinks.

Here’s every reason he should sashay away from the public eye. For good.

1. Balthazar

Keith McNally, the owner of Balthazar restaurant (along with many others) took to Instagram to let the world know what he really thought of James Corden.

Captioning the post: “James Corden is a hugely gifted comedian, but a tiny cretin of a man. And the most abusive customer to my Balthazar servers since the restaurant opened 25 years ago. I don’t often 86 a customer, today I 86’d Corden. It did not make me laugh.” Keith goes on to explain Corden’s behaviour towards his staff on more than one occasion.

Despite being forgiven and ‘un-banned’, by McNally, we can’t help but imagine the bad taste this might leave in Corden’s mouth.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Keith McNally (@keithmcnallynyc)

**2. Gavin and Stacey’s ‘Fairytale of New York’ faux-pas**

When the much-loved sitcom announced its return for a 2019 Christmas special, fans were overjoyed. The original cast all returned, including Corden, but that was OK, because it was the same genuinely funny show that didn’t have to rely on shock value to make people laugh, right?

Wrong. When The Pogues’ contentious holiday hit starts playing with Smithy standing behind a karaoke machine, queer viewers clenched their hands to see what they’d do about the “f****t” line.

Turns out that Corden and Ruth Jones, who wrote the series, would sing the slur openly and brazenly out of millions of TV screens across the country. Merry Xmas!

3. The Prom

In another tussle with the LGBTQ+ community, Corden came under fire for his grossly miscalculated performance of Barry Glickman.

Originally a 2018 Broadway Musical, the film adaptation featured Corden alongside Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman and Andrew Rannells. What fans took issue with, however, was that Corden’s Glickman was missing an ounce of believability, missing the mark to a really quite impressive degree

Vanity Fair wrote “James Corden should have been banned from The Prom” and branded his performance as “insulting”. The Guardian called it “spectacularly misjudged” and the Los Angeles Times even slammed it as “homophobic”

How do you even ruin a Meryl Streep film!?

4. Cats

Honestly, whatever the hell Cats was deserves its own spot on this list. No further comment.

5. Cameraman confusion

No, it’s not the name of a new game show! It’s when James Corden, who owes his image and successful output of his show to these people, couldn’t even name two of the cameraman working onset during a segment with Jimmy Kimmel.

6. Horne and Corden

More toeing the line between comedy and full-throttle insults, we have to touch on the now infamous – and very hard to find anywhere on the internet – sketch in which Horne played an overtly camp news reporter in a war zone.

Corden has said: “I can’t imagine we would do that sketch today.”

7. Harvey Weinstein jokes

During a Gala speech, Corden said: “Tonight is so beautiful, Harvery Weinstein has already asked tonight up to his hotel to give him a massage.”

If you’re going to be provocative, James, be funny. Don’t make light of a convicted rapist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=yjSZ1lUsn9Y&feature=emb_logo&ab_channel=ViralityFactor

8. The Harry Styles Snog

In Styles’s episode of Carpool Karaoke in 2017, Corden lived out the dreams of Styles fans everywhere by smooching the singer in full view of the various GoPros in the car that somehow won an Emmy over Beyoncé’s Homecoming. We’re still confused about that, but we digress.

This one basically boils down to a straight bloke snogging another bloke on telly for laughs, with actual queer men at the wrong end of the joke – isn’t that literally the funniest thing you’ve ever seen. It’s been five years and we’re still laughing.

In 2020, James Corden told The New Yorker he became “intoxicated” by the glitz and glam of celebrity status after Gavin and Stacey success – and presumably that of his talk show, too. He said he began to behave like a “brat” and people called him out on it to the extent that he took himself to therapy.

People on Twitter have been quick to add their own stories (and share memes) in light of McNally’s Instagram post. It’s worth noting that a lot of them have not been corroborated.