James Corden has found himself in hot water once again after getting caught using one of Ricky Gervais’s jokes from 2018 on his Late Late Show.
The TV host apologised after Gervais, 61, shared a clip from Corden’s Halloween show on Twitter during which he repeated a joke from the 2018 Netflix stand-up comedy special Ricky Gervais: Humanity, reports the Daily Mail.
The stolen joke is about Twitter users getting upset over a town square poster advertising guitar lessons.
In which James Corden basically does a Ricky Gervais joke word for word
— Rupert Myers (@RupertMyers) November 1, 2022
Corden then wrote on Twitter, “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.”
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.In Gervais’ original tweet, he had written, “The bit about the town square advert for guitar lessons is brilliant” but later deleted it because he “felt sorry for Corden”.
During the Halloween episode of his show, Corden used the joke when speaking about Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover.
“If someone puts up a poster in a town square that says ‘guitar lessons available’, like you don’t get people in the town going. ‘I don’t want to play guitar! I want to play the piano you piece of s***!
“Well, that sign wasn’t for you. It was for somebody else! You don’t have to get mad about all of it.”
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.But the joke was practically a word-for-word copy of Gervais’ comedy bit from 2018, illustrating the fact that people were taking things too personally on social media.
In the sketch, Gervais said at the time, “They choose to read my tweet, and then take that personally.
“That’s like going into a town square, seeing a big notice board and there’s a notice - guitar lessons - and you go, ‘But I don’t want f***ing guitar lessons’.
“Fine, it’s not for you then, just walk away. Don’t worry about it!”
When a fan asked Gervais whether Corden asked permission to use his joke, he responded, “No. I reckon one of the writers ‘came up with it’ for him. I doubt he would knowingly just copy such a famous stand up routine word for word like that.”
The Late Late Show has since deleted the clip of Corden making the joke from their Twitter.
The show’s host has been mired in controversy since he was accused by restaurant staff at New York’s Balthazar of “screaming” at them when they served his wife an egg yolk omelette with egg white in it.
