• On the Late Late Show on October 31, the host faced backlash for almost verbatim copying a joke by Ricky Gervais.
• The host later took to social media to apologize.
• James tweeted on November 1 that he “accidentally told a wonderful Ricky Gervais joke on the show last night, clearly not knowing it was from him.” “

The current scandal involving James Corden is nothing to giggle about. On the Late Late Show on October 31, the host faced backlash for almost verbatim copying a joke by Ricky Gervais. The host later took to social media to apologize.

James tweeted on November 1 that he “accidentally told a wonderful Ricky Gervais joke on the show last night, clearly not knowing it was from him.” “Because it’s a Ricky Gervais joke, it’s amazing. All of Ricky’s top-notch specials are available on Netflix.”

One day after facing criticism from viewers who claimed he stole the joke from Ricky’s 2018 Netflix special Humanity on the CBS late-night talk show, James, 44, responded to his detractors.

“When you see Elon Musk talk about Twitter, he does this thing where he goes, ‘It’s the town square,'” James said at the time, per The Hollywood Reporter. “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 the 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 joke was quite similar to one that Ricky, 61, made in his stand-up comedy special in which he emphasized his dislike of unwarranted criticism from enraged Twitter users.

“[It’s] like going into a town square, and seeing a big notice board that says, ‘Notice: Guitar lessons,’ and going: ‘I don’t f–king want guitar lessons!'” Ricky said in the special. “Fine! It’s not for you, then. Just walk away, don’t worry about it.”

The Office creator joined the conversation after fans slammed James’ reused joke on Nov. 1, writing, “The line about the town square advert for guitar lessons is excellent.”

After that, Ricky removed the tweet and told a follower that he “started to feel bad” for the Cats actor.

He continued, “I think one of the authors ‘came up with it’ for him. He wouldn’t intentionally steal such a well-known stand-up performance word for word, in my opinion.

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