James Corden Shuts Down Restaurant Drama As ‘So Silly’: ‘I Haven’t Done Anything Wrong’

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‘The Late Late Show’ host said that he felt ‘so Zen’ after he was put on blast for allegedly behaving badly at a New York City restaurant.

James Corden let comments surrounding him being banned (and subsequently unbanned) from restauranteur Keith McNally’s restaurants roll off his back. The late-night host, 44, addressed the fact that he was briefly banned for alleged bad behavior at New York’s Balthazar in a New York Times profile, published on Thursday, October 20. “I haven’t done anything wrong, on any level,” he told the outlet. “I feel so Zen about the whole thing. Because I think it’s so silly. I just think it’s beneath all of us.”

While James didn’t recount his side of the argument, he did appear to be in good humor about it. Times reporter Dave Itzkoff recounted a joke that the comedian made after a woman at a table sitting near them made a complaint about her eggs, seemingly referring to one of the incidents that Keith listed, where James allegedly complained about his wife Julia Carey’s egg-yolk omelet. Still, The Late Late Show host remarked that he was “probably going to have to talk about it on Monday’s show.”

Overall, James seemed unbothered and said that he didn’t follow the online conversation surrounding him. “I haven’t really read anything. It’s strange. It’s strange when you were there,” he said. “My feeling, often, is, never explain, never complain. But I’ll probably have to talk about it.”

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Despite facing much backlash online, the “Carpool Karaoke” host admitted that it hasn’t translated to much in the real world, suggesting that very few people in the restaurant where the interview took place would even be aware. “Should we not all be a little grown-up about this?” he said. “I’ve been here, been walking around New York, not one person’s come up to me. We’re dealing in two worlds here.”

Keith McNally’s Instagram post made James a trending topic after the restauranteur called him a “cretin of a man” and claimed he was the “most abusive customer.” After posting the alleged manager’s reports, Keith posted a follow-up where he said that the comic called and “apologized profusely,” and he rescinded the ban. “Having f**ked up myself more than most people, I strongly believe in second chances,” he wrote. “Anyone magnanimous enough to apologize to a deadbeat layabout like me (and my staff) doesn’t deserve to be banned from anywhere. Especially Balthazar.”