James Corden has been accused of 'stealing' a joke from Ricky Gervais almost 'word for word' - and The Officer star humiliatingly called out his fellow comedian. Corden, who is already in hot water after being banned from a top New York City due to his treatment of waiting staff, is now facing allegations of copying one of Gervais' most famous gags.
During a Halloween special of his talk show on Monday night, James was discussing Elon Musk's controversial takeover of Twitter and plans to charge verified users in a passionate rant. The host said: "When you see Elon Musk talk about Twitter, he does this thing where he goes 'It's the town square.'
"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 want to play the guitar! I wanna play the piano you piece of s***!'
He finished: "But that sign wasn't for you, it was for somebody else, you don't have to get mad about all of it."
The audience found it incredibly funny and burst into laughter, while James basked in the giggles from the crowd.
The clip was posted on the show's Twitter page, so many UK fans were quick to point out that it's almost a carbon copy of Ricky's side-splitting joke from his 2018 Humanity tour.
During his gig, Gervais took the mick out of social media users who take things far too personally on Twitter.
"People take everything personally. They think the world revolves around them, particularly on Twitter," he explained.
"I'm not tweeting anyone. I don't know who's following me. They can be following me without me knowing, 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 f***ing want guitar lessons'."
Gervais added: "Fine, it's not for you then, just walk away. Don't worry about it!"
Having noticed the undeniable similarities between Corden's joke and his, Ricky shared the clip on Twitter with the words: "The bit about the town square advert for guitar lessons is brilliant."
He would later delete the tweet and seemed to actually come to Corden's defence, pointing out it was someone in his team who probably wrote the script.
"Didn’t deliver it like you though," one fan replied to Gervais, adding: "I assume he asked to use that joke?"
Ricky replied: "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."
Corden's representatives have been approached for comment by The Mirror.
Ricky made his feeling really clear by liking dozens of tweets having a go at Corden for copying the joke.
One of them read: "How do you blatantly steal @rickygervais material on national TV and think nobody is going to notice"
"If you're going to steal a joke, at least change the specifics. And don't steal it from a @rickygervais show that's been watched by half the population of the planet," was another.
A third Ricky liked said: "Wow. Straight up ripped it off. Whoever passed that to him has no pride in their craft. What a shame."
He also liked a large number of tweets referencing his famous line in The Office UK as David Brent.
In the hilarious scene, Brent has a word with colleague Gareth Keenan about stealing his catchphrase.
Brent says: "I don't mind influencing a younger comedian, you're not a comedian, but I usually credit someone if I use one of their jokes."
Corden and Gervais would seem like ideal candidates to be pals, considering they are both British comedians who wrote ionic TV shows then found success in America.
But the pair have become well known for trading nasty insults with each other - with the first swipe taking place in James' short-lived comedy show Horne and Corden.
During one sketch in their BBC 3 series back in 2009, James depicted Ricky as a bumbling fool who was struggling to find any work.
Gervais offended virtually the whole of Hollywood when he fronted the Golden Globes in 2011, but James said there wouldn't be as many bad-taste jokes when he hosted the Brit Awards that year.
"I’m not going to go down the Ricky Gervais road because, well, you can’t in that room, anyway – there’s a big difference between the O2 and the dining room in the Beverly Hilton," Corden told The Mirror.
"Basically, I want to host the Brits with as much warmth and sensitivity as possible. Fewer gags.
The most outrageous insult came when Ricky hosted the Golden Globes again in 2020 and referred to James as in some rather unsavoury terms.
He had the audience in stitches by joking: "The world got to see James Corden as a fat p****. He was also in the movie Cats, but no one saw that."
