James Corden Accused of Stealing Ricky Gervais' Joke: 'Word for Word'

James Corden is receiving more criticism online—this time after being accused of plagiarism after seemingly using one of Ricky Gervais' jokes during Corden's late-night talk show.

Gervais even addressed the incident on Twitter but has since deleted his tweet. On Tuesday, Corden spoke out via the Late Late Show Twitter account, saying he "inadvertently" told a Gervais joke on the show. Gervais retweeted the explanation.

As Corden opened the Halloween show of The Late Late Show on CBS, he started discussing Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter. He went on to tell a joke that many online pointed out was also "word for word" a copy of one of Gervais' jokes from his 2018 stand-up special Humanity.

"Elon Musk talks about Twitter and goes 'Well it's the town square.' I'm like, 'But it isn't,'" Corden continued during his monologue. "Because if someone puts up a poster in the town square that says 'guitar lessons available' you don't get people in the town going 'I don't want to play guitar! I want to play the piano.'"

After a clip of the joke was shared on Twitter, hundreds of people started replying and accusing Corden of plagiarism. They tagged Gervais and shared a clip of Gervais telling an almost identical joke.

Eventually, The Office star replied.

"The bit about the town square advert for guitar lessons is brilliant," Gervais added a laughing emoji as he retweeted the clip. It got over 20,000 likes, comments and retweets before being deleted.

A few hours later, Corden used the Late Late Show social media accounts to explain what had happened.

"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," he wrote.

Gervais retweeted the message but then also shared an old clip of himself appearing with Jimmy Fallon on Late Night, where he explains that the host doesn't write his jokes.

Earlier in the month, there were rumors that the two British comedians were embroiled in a feud that was further fueled by Gervais sharing a clip from the TV series After Life in which his character made fun of Corden.

It's the latest piece of unwanted publicity for Corden after he was forced to speak out on being banned from a New York restaurant for being "rude" to staff. The owner of the restaurant resurrected the feud, calling Corden's on-air apology "contrived and phony."

Within the comment section of Twitter, many users piled on the abuse directed at Corden for allegedly stealing another comedian's joke.

"So you managed to steal Ricky Gervais' joke, recite it word for word, and somehow it's not funny anymore when you say it," @Elessar_JoL wrote, "That's incredible."

"Is this how you make money, stealing other peoples' jokes?" asked @TryItAndCry.

Others spoke up in Corden's defense, suggesting that he'd been set up by one of his writers—though some suggested that it was proof that The Late Late Show staff might not like their host.

"He clearly has no idea," sports reporter Stina Sternberg wrote. "All these talk-show monologues are written by a team of writers. One of those writers will most definitely be fired for plagiarism today (and rightly so)."

TV writer Bess Kalb agreed that the blame, intentional or not, lies with the staff.

"Your writers, writers assistants, producers, and teleprompter operator are openly trolling you with this verbatim Ricky Gervais bit," she wrote.

Writer Simon Young added: "I think one of your writers stitched you right up. Good work!"

Corden has yet to respond to the allegations of plagiarism, and at the time of writing the clip of the joke is still up on The Late Late Show with James Corden's social media channels. After his initial tweet, Gervais has yet to speak on the incident.

Newsweek has reached out to Gervais, Corden and The Late Late Show for additional comment.

Update 11/2/22 4:00 a.m. ET: This article was updated to include Corden's response to the situation.