James Corden, while trying to do press for his new TV show Mammals, was forced to talk about that egg yolk omelette and his brief ban from the notable New York City restaurant Balthazar.
The whole scrambled incident cracked open earlier this week when owner and restauranteur Keith McNally (a man who’s garnered no shortage of controversies himself) publicly blasted Corden on Instagram, claiming the Late Late Show host was “the most abusive customer to my Balthazar servers since the restaurant opened 25 years ago.” The post even included manager reports from two alleged incidents, the second of which supposedly took place earlier this month and involved some stray egg whites in the egg yolk omelette and an accidental side of home fries instead of salad.
Not long after issuing the ban, McNally rescinded it, stating in a follow-up post that Corden had called and “apologized profusely.” McNally continued, “Having fucked up myself more than most people, I strongly believe in second chances… anyone magnanimous enough to apologize to a deadbeat layout like me (and my staff) doesn’t deserve to be banned from anywhere.”
But just because the ban was lifted in a matter of hours didn’t save Corden from enduring a few questions about it during a not-so-conveniently timed interview with The New York Times. Corden reportedly tried dodging questions about the alleged incident, insisting he hadn’t “read anything.”
“I think I’m probably going to have to talk about it on Monday’s show,” he said. “My feeling, often, is, never explain, never complain. But I’ll probably have to talk about it.”
Elsewhere he stated, “I haven’t done anything wrong on any level. So why would I ever cancel this? I was there. I get it. I feel so Zen about the whole thing. Because I think it’s so silly. I just think it’s beneath all of us. It’s beneath you. It’s certainly beneath your publication.”
Corden was also asked about the social media conversation McNally’s initial post sparked, which touched on other past allegations of rude public behavior. (Corden, for his part, acknowledged in his 2011 memoir that he often behaved poorly amid the wild success of his breakthrough British sitcom, Gavin and Stacey, in the late 2000s). The comedian, however, continued to rebuff the topic, saying, “it feels like such a silly thing to talk about” and insisting that social media was not the real world.
The closest Corden came to acknowledging the egg-cident was when — go figure — another customer at the restaurant the interview was taking place at complained to a waiter about her own egg dish.
“Happens every day,” Corden said. “It’s happening in 55,000 restaurants as we speak. It’s always about eggs… Can you imagine now if we just blasted her on Twitter? Would that be fair? This is my point. It’s insane.”