When it comes to notoriously ill-tempered talk show hosts, perhaps nobody is more infamous than Ellen DeGeneres. But The Late Late Show host James Corden just might unseat DeGeneres if any more tales of his abusive behind-the-scenes behavior stack up.
He's already publicly tangled with restaurateur Keith McNally after he berated one of McNally's servers, been accused of stealing jokes from Ricky Gervais and Noel Fielding, called "the biggest d*ckhead" she's ever met by Mel B, and been caught ignoring a woman and her screaming baby on a plane who turned out to be his own wife and daughter.
Now, British TV director Craig Duncan has taken to his YouTube channel to add yet another chapter to the saga of Corden allegedly being... well, a real a**hole, to put it bluntly.
Duncan's run-in with Corden was a full 10 years ago, long before Corden had hit the Hollywood big-time on these shores, but his attitude seems to have been every bit the arrogant A-list diva even then, to hear Duncan tell it.
In his YouTube video, Duncan called Corden "the most difficult and obnoxious presenter" he has ever worked with, and with a career spanning back more than 25 years, that's definitely saying something.
Duncan worked with Corden back in 2013 on the British panel show A League of Their Own, of which Corden was the host, when he was hired to direct a cooking segment on the show.
Duncan was asked before he was even offered the job whether he had experience working with "difficult presenters," and having worked with legendary opera trio "The Three Tenors," he figured he had it covered, since "you can’t get more of a prima donna than an opera singer."
He was quickly proven wrong, beginning with rehearsals. While observing Corden practicing a segment in which he had to read off of note cards, Duncan witness Corden throwing a tantrum about a joke on the cards.
Duncan says Corden said:
"That’s not funny―that’s not funny. It’s sh-t. We have to rewrite that."
Duncan was shocked, but ultimately shrugged it off.
"Maybe he was having a bad day, and the writing's just not been up to scratch. But I definitely thought, ‘Man, you know, somebody wrote that―not nice to do that.’ But, you know, television isn’t for the faint-hearted."
But once it came time to shoot the segment he was directing, he found out that the rehearsal incident was not just a one-off.
Duncan described how, while he was working out with the crew how to shoot the scene with very little time to do so due to Corden's demanding schedule, Corden suddenly erupted and began berating Duncan.
He told Duncan:
"What the fu-k is going on here? It’s obvious what you do!"
Duncan then relayed how Corden began barking out the same orders he was already giving to his crew in the first place--and how his antics ended up delaying the shoot, which was rushed because of Corden's schedule, an extra 40 minutes.
He ended his video by quipping:
"Cheers, James―you got your way. Well done... I don’t care. I get paid at the end of the day, and I hope I never ever work with you again."
On Twitter, Duncan's story left many people slack-jawed, but not exactly surprised, given the many, many rumors about Corden's surly demeanor in recent years.
It seems as though all these negative stories may have gotten to him—Corden told a recent The Late Late Show audience that he is "terrified of being unemployed" when he wraps up his hosting tenure on April 27 and returns to the UK.
