James Corden responds to allegation he copied a Ricky Gervais joke

CNN
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James Corden says he “inadvertently” told a joke originally made by fellow British funnyman Ricky Gervais.

Some viewers of “The Late Late Show With James Corden” took to social media to point out that a joke Corden made during his monologue on the October 31 episode was almost identical to one made by Gervais in his 2018 stand-up show, “Humanity.”

Corden’s joke was poking fun at Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter.

“When you see Elon Musk talk about Twitter he does this thing where he goes ‘Well, it’s the town square,’” Corden said. “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 want to play the piano, you piece of s**t!’”

The Twitter joke made by Gervais was almost identical.

“It’s like going into a town square and there’s a notice for guitar lessons and you go, ‘But I don’t f**king want guitar lessons,’” Gervais said.

Gervais responded to a Twitter user who wrote “Didn’t deliver it like you though. I assume he asked to use that joke?”

“No. I reckon one of the writers ‘came up with it’ for him,” Gervais tweeted. “I doubt he would knowingly just copy such a famous stand up routine word for word like that.”

On Tuesday Corden tweeted, “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,” Corden wrote. “You can watch all Ricky’s excellent specials on Netflix.”