The week began with head-scratching involving an egg-yolk omelette, and the James Corden restaurant-drama saga ain’t over yet.
The fed-up, famed New York restauranteur Keith McNally kicked off this matter by revealing that he was banning the outgoing late-night host. Corden, of course, takes an almost aggressively cheery on-air demeanor and is known for his “Carpool Karaoke” segments, but McNally alleged that Corden was not only a “tiny cretin” but also “the most abusive customer” (who reportedly yelled, “You can’t do your job! You can’t do your job! Maybe I should go into the kitchen and cook the omelette myself!”) that he’s seen in his 25 years running Balthazar.
From there, we saw days of drama, which could have ended with Corden initially apologizing (and being unbanned), but the matter yielded to other stories about Corden allegedly behaving badly, on a plane and in public. Yet all of this might have eventually blown over, but Corden spoke with the New York Times‘ Dave Itzkoff, who broached the subject and received Corden backpedaling on his own apology. “I haven’t done anything wrong, on any level,” Corden insisted before adding, “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.”
So essentially, Corden doesn’t care that people care about how he treats food service workers. It’s “silly,” and he’s denying wrongdoing, which led to McNally firing back at the Cats star. Here’s what McNally wrote on Instagram, and he wants a public admission and staff apologies:
STORM IN A RESTAURANT TEACUP.
I’ve no wish to kick a man when he’s down. Especially one who’s worth $100 Million, but when James Corden said in yesterday’s NY Times that he hadn’t done “anything wrong, on any level,” was he joking? Or was he denying being abusive to my servers? Whatever Corden meant, his implication was clear: he didn’t do it.
Although I didn’t witness the incident, lots of my restaurant’s floor staff did. They had nothing to gain by lying. Corden did.
I wish James Corden would live up to his Almighty initials and come clean. If the supremely talented actor wants to retrieve the respect he had from all his fans (all 4 of them) before this incident, then he should at least admit he did wrong. If he goes one step further and apologizes to the 2 servers he insulted, I’ll let him eat for free at Balthazar for the next 10 years.
You can see McNally’s latest Instagram post below. Your move, Corden.