James Corden has admitted he was “rude” and “ungracious” during an incident that ended in him being banned from a New York restaurant.
The actor and comedian was briefly barred from Balthazar in Manhattan last week after its owner, Keith McNally, claimed in a social media post that he had been “extremely nasty” to his staff on two separate occasions.
Addressing the incident during the latest episode of his talk show, The Late Late Show, Corden said it was never his intention to upset the restaurant workers.
The 44-year-old added that in the immediate aftermath, he had been “walking around thinking that I haven’t done anything wrong“.
“I didn’t shout or scream, I didn’t get up out of my seat, I didn’t call anyone names or use derogatory language,” he said on the CBS show.
“But the truth is I have made a rude, rude comment. And it was wrong. It was an unnecessary comment, it was ungracious to the server.”
The Gavin and Stacey star explained that after seeing Mr McNally’s post, he “immediately” contacted him and they “had a good talk”.
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“He appreciated the call. I was happy that we got to clear the air. And I felt like we dealt with it privately… but by this point, the story was out there and more people were upset,” he said.
After Mr McNally posted the story online, it sparked outrage on social media, with Corden showing his audience some of the scathing tweets that were written about him.
“I get it. I totally understand. I understand everybody getting upset, and I accept everybody’s opinion,” he said.
He added that he hopes to return to the restaurant when he is back in New York to “apologise in person”.
What did Mr McNally say happened?
In an Instagram post, the popular restaurant owner described Corden as the “most abusive customer to my Balthazar servers since the restaurant opened 25 years ago”.
He claimed that he was “extremely nasty” to a member of staff after finding a hair in his food.
While admitting the discovery was “diabolical”, he added that the manager at the time was “very apologetic”.
Referring to him as a “tiny cretin of a man”, he claimed that the celebrity demanded a round of free drinks “this second” and also wanted the restaurant to “take care” of all the drinks his table had been served.
In a second incident, Mr McNally claimed Corden complained “there was a little bit of egg white mixed with the egg yolk” in his wife’s omelette.
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His post continued: “The kitchen remade the dish but unfortunately sent it with home fries instead of salad.
“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!'”
However, hours after announcing he had been “86’d”, Mr McNally wrote another post to say the ban had been lifted after Corden had apologised.
