James Corden is shooting down “silly” drama over his alleged restaurant behavior. The Late Late Show host broke his silence in a new interview with The New York Times after Balthazar owner Keith McNally revealed he had banned Corden from his restaurant Monday, calling the late-night host “the most abusive customer to my Balthazar servers since the restaurant opened 25 years ago.” Just hours later, McNally lifted the ban and said in a follow-up post that Corden had “apologized profusely.”
“I haven’t done anything wrong, on any level. So why would I ever cancel this [interview]? I was there. I get it,” the comedian said in his new interview, published Thursday, “I feel so Zen about the whole thing. Because I think it’s so silly.” Corden continued, “I just think it’s beneath all of us. It’s beneath you. It’s certainly beneath your publication.”
Videos by PopCulture.com
During the interview, which was conducted at another New York restaurant, a different patron at a nearby table sent back her eggs, which prompted Corden’s comment, “Can you imagine now, if we just blasted her on Twitter? Would that be fair?” He added, “This is my point. It’s insane.”
In McNally’s original social media post, the restaurant owner said he doesn’t “often 86 a customer, to today I 86’d Corden. It did not make me laugh.” He went on to share two alleged incidents in which Corden came into his restaurant and treated the staff poorly, claiming the Carpool Karaoke star previously acted similarly at his previous restaurant, Cafe Luxembourg.
The first incident, McNally recalled, occurred back in June, when Corden found a hair in his food – something “diabolical” that happens “very occasionally” in every restaurant, the restauranteur insisted. After he had finished his main course, Corden allegedly showed the hair to the “very apologetic” manager. “Corden was extremely nasty to [the manager], and said: ‘Get us another round of drinks this second. And also take care of all of our drinks so far,” McNally wrote. “This way I write any nasty reviews in yelp or anything like that.’”
Another incident allegedly occurred earlier this month as Corden was accused of complaining about his wife’s meal being wrong. “That’s when James Corden began yelling like crazy to the server: ‘You can’t do your job! You can’t do your job! Maybe I should go into the kitchen and cook the omelette myself!’” McNally wrote. The next day, McNally said he was “feeling strange” after calling out Corden on social media and both banning and unbanning him from the restaurant. “On the one hand, he was definitely abusive to my staff, on the other hand, I feel really sorry for him right now,” he noted.
