James Corden Responds to Accusations He Copied a Ricky Gervais Joke

James Corden has responded to accusations that he stole a joke from fellow comedian Ricky Gervais, saying that he did not do it intentionally.

Earlier this week social media users began pointing out that the joke Corden made about Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter during a recent episode of his "Late Late Show" was almost identical to one Gervais made in his 2018 stand-up show, "Humanity."

"When you see Elon Musk talk about Twitter he does this thing where he goes ‘Well, it’s the town square,’" Corden said, according to CNN. "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 want to play the guitar! I want to play the piano, you piece of s**t!’"

Gervais' joke, in which he spoke about people taking things too personally on Twitter, was notably similar.

"They choose to read my tweet, and then take that personally," he said in his comedy sketch, according to the Daily Mail. "That's like going into a town square, seeing a big notice board and there's a notice — guitar lessons — and you go, 'But I don't want f***ing guitar lessons'."

Gervais added: "Fine, it's not for you then, just walk away. Don't worry about it!"

The stand-up comic gave Corden the benefit of the doubt, saying on Twitter that he believes "one of the writers" came up with the joke for Corden.

"I doubt he would knowingly just copy such a famous stand-up routine word for word like that," he added.

Taking to Twitter Tuesday, Corden explained that he "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," he added. "You can watch all Ricky’s excellent specials on Netflix."

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