James Corden is making headlines again. On The Late Late Show Monday (October 31st), Corden told a joke about Elon Musk taking over Twitter that was almost identical to one Ricky Gervais made in 2018.
“When you see Elon Musk talk about Twitter, he does this thing where he goes, ‘It’s the town square,'” Corden said. “But it isn’t, because if someone puts up a poster in a town square that says ‘guitar lessons available,’ you don’t get people in the town going: ‘I don’t wanna play the guitar!’ But that sign wasn’t for you, it was for somebody else — you don’t have to get mad about all of it.”
In Gervais’ Netflix special Humanity, he says of Twitter: “… It’s like going into a town square, and seeing a big notice board that says, ‘Notice: Guitar lessons,’ and going: ‘I don’t fucking want guitar lessons!’ … Fine! It’s not for you, then. Just walk away, don’t worry about it.”
In response to this, Gervais wrote in a since-deleted tweet, “The bit about the town square advert for guitar lessons is brilliant.” Later he said he “started to feel sorry for Corden,” and added, “I reckon one of the writers ‘came up with it’ for him. I doubt he would knowingly just copy such a famous stand up routine word for word like that.”
Corden acknowledged the flub on Twitter Tuesday (November 1st): “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. You can watch all Ricky’s excellent specials on Netflix.”