What James Corden, Ricky Gervais Have Said About Each Other in Rumored Feud

Ricky Gervais waded into the drama surrounding fellow Brit James Corden and his brief ban from a New York restaurant.

The host of The Late Late Show With James Corden, 44, was given a lifetime ban from Balthazar's in Soho, with owner Keith McNally calling him a "tiny cretin of a man and the most abusive customer to my Balthazar servers since the restaurant opened 25 years ago," in a scathing Instagram post.

He banned Corden from Balthazar after the comedian allegedly treated the staff poorly, but ended up reversing his decision within a day.

That did not stop Gervais from getting in on the jokes pointed in Corden's direction.

Gervais retweeted a tweet featuring a scene from his Netflix show, After Life,where one of the characters, Kath, discusses her top five dinner guests.

When she listed Corden as one, Gervais' character, Tony Johnson, chimes in with a simple "f**k me," in disgust.

The Twitter caption read: "James f**king Corden. AfterLife @rickygervais. Worst. Dinner party. Ever."

That scene in After Life also poked fun at Corden's popular Late Late Show "Carpool Karaoke" segment where he drives around with celebrities while singing in the car.

Kath says, "that man can that can do anything," as Tony quickly retorts, "and does." She adds: "He's always working," to which Tony replies, "as a chauffeur, mainly."

Gervais also replied to a tweet mocking Corden's behavior which read, "I'm sorry, but when you're as talented as James Corden you get to treat people however the f**k you want. That's the price we pay for the undeniable magic he brings to the table. And I'd gladly pay it, and so would all of you. He's THAT good."

When another Twitter user slammed the tweet for seeming to support Corden, he pointed out, "I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it was sarcasm."

The tweets are by no means the first time the famous men have traded barbs.

In 2009, Corden harshly parodied Gervais' The Office character David Brent on his sketch TV series, Horne and Corden. His costar, Matthew Horne, later revealed on the variety show Never Mind The Buzzcocks that he had to pull in Corden's performance because he had taken it too far with the impersonation.

Two years later the men were hosting major awards within weeks of each other.

Gervais had managed to offend just about everyone in Hollywood when he hosted the 2011 Golden Globe Awards.

But when Corden was due to host the Brit music awards in London, he vowed not to follow in the former's footsteps.

"I'm not going to go down the Ricky Gervais road because, well, you can't in that room anyway—there's a big difference between the O2 and the dining room in the Beverly Hilton," he told The Mirror at the time.

"Basically, I want to host the Brits with as much warmth and sensitivity as possible. Fewer gags. Mostly, I've been following guidance from producers," Corden said. "They're encouraging a positive, upbeat, interesting show as opposed to anything particularly risqué."

Fast forward a few years and Gervais explained why Corden's attempts at a risqué joke about Harvey Weinstein in the #MeToo era had fallen flat.

Corden was hosting an amFar charity dinner when he said: "It's a beautiful night here in L.A., so beautiful, Harvey Weinstein has already asked tonight up to his hotel to give him a massage."

Gervais, who is no stranger to controversial jokes, slammed his peer's attempt.

"When you do a contentious joke or talk about a taboo subject, it's got to be a great joke," he said in an interview on Radio Andy. "You can't just bounce out there and do jokes about abuse and rape. You've got to be very intelligent when you do it.

"There's got to be a point to it. He did it like it was light entertainment. He didn't do it well enough."

He joked about Corden again during another controversial stint hosting the Golden Globes in 2020.

"The world got to see James Corden as a fat p****y. He was also in the movie Cats, but no one saw that," Gervais said in his opening monologue.

But the duo is not entirely without love for each other, and Corden even defended Gervais from online trolls in 2011.

"People should keep their hands off him. If I only managed to do half of what he has done I will consider myself a success," the talk show host said.

Gervais has said on multiple occasions the pair are not actually feuding and can appreciate making jokes about each other.

"There is no feud between myself and James nor has there ever been," he told The Sun in 2020. "The Cats joke that I told at the Golden Globes is obviously a pun on his role in the film, and James' impression of me in his sketch show was also friendly teasing, and I took no offense to that."

In May, Gervais told the Press Association that the pair were comedians and did not take the barbs to heart.

"James did an impression of me in his show, I didn't take it personally, it's just fun," he said. "I've got no animosity. People will think that though, but as long as they [the subjects] don't, that's all I care about."