James Corden exited The Late Late Show nearly a year ago and the former host says that most people still think he was forced out. Appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Corden reflected on his life since leaving late-night and explained the reactions he gets in England since moving home.
“People are very nice, but no one believes that I wasn’t fired,” Corden told Kimmel. “I’ll be in a pub or something and people will be like, ‘So why’d you come back?’” He explained that the reasoning had to do with his son finishing school in England and having a relationship with his grandparents, which is what he tells everyone.
“People will honestly be like, ‘You don’t have to give me that, it’s fine mate. If you got fired, you got fired,’” Corden added. “Because nobody thinks that you would ever leave what is, let’s be honest, a cushy existence.”
After Kimmel suggested he get a letter from CBS saying he was not fired, Corden noted, “They do not know what CBS is, so they’ll go, ‘That’s not a real thing.’ And then I have to tell them what the show was and they’ll go, ‘Hang on, it was on at 12:30 at night? That’s a ridiculous time to put a TV show on.’”
Elsewhere in the interview, which was ostensibly to promote Corden’s new London play The Constituent, Corden told Kimmel he does miss late-night, especially getting a standing ovation every night at his job. “I get nothing,” he said of his life now. “I get eye rolls. My youngest daughter is six. She’s an American and she, for some reason, is holding on to her American accent… She is talking like Samantha from Sex and the City. So I’ll come home and no I don’t get a standing ovation. All I’ll get is Charlotte going, ‘It’s raining, again.’”
He added of his kids, “And they thought I had all this money and now I don’t have all this money anymore.”
Corden announced his departure from The Late Late Show in 2022. “When I started this journey, it was always going to be just that,” the host said on air. “It was going to be a journey, an adventure. I never saw it as my final destination,” he said. “We still have a year to go and we are all determined to make this the best year we have ever had making this show. We are going to go out with a bang.”
