Do we like James Corden?
Our score: 6 out of 10. Nothing harmful found in his own words and some real kindness, but accounts of rudeness to staff that he has partly owned up to.
James Corden was born in 1978 and grew up in Hazlemere, near High Wycombe, in a Salvation Army family. His mum was a social worker and his dad a Royal Air Force musician. He went to stage school and landed a first professional role at 17 in Martin Guerre. He co-created Gavin and Stacey with Ruth Jones, won an Olivier and a Tony for One Man, Two Guvnors in 2012, and took over The Late Late Show in 2015.
The scandal everyone knows is the Balthazar one. In October 2022, restaurant owner Keith McNally banned him on Instagram, calling him a “tiny Cretin of a man” and alleging he had been abusive to servers in June and again on 9 October. Hours later McNally lifted the ban after Corden phoned to apologise. A week on, Corden said on air “I made a rude comment, and it was wrong”, after first telling himself he'd done nothing wrong.
A second story is old but sticky. In 2023, former director Craig Duncan alleged Corden shouted at him on the 2013 set of A League of Their Own, dismissed a scripted joke and was pleasant to celebrities but not to crew. That's one person's account, and the Fox report carried no reply from Corden. Add the restaurant and you get a consistent picture of a man who can be short with people who can't answer back.
On the LGBTQ+ front, the main black mark is The Prom. Critics, including AwardsWatch's Erik Anderson, called his turn as a gay Broadway star “the worst gayface in a long, long time”, and Corden said he was “very proud” of it. In 2017 he also cracked jokes about Harvey Weinstein at a charity gala, drew fire from Weinstein's accusers, and apologised on Twitter, saying he had meant to shame Weinstein.
The harm check otherwise comes up clean. In 2017 he opened his show with a video protesting Trump's travel ban, ending with a message about freedom of movement for “all immigrants. Not just the white and Christian ones.” I found no campaigning against trans people, women or the planet, and no pattern of working with people who push harm. His latest gig is the World Cup show, co-hosted by Rio Ferdinand and Ian Karmel. The record on this is thin rather than damning.
The good stuff is real. In 2020 he agreed to pay the salaries of about 60 furloughed Late Late Show staffers when CBS's cover ran out. He also won an Emmy for Carpool Karaoke, plus the Olivier and Tony for the stage hit.