James Corden “complains” and “explains” but never quite apologizes for Balthazargate
"When you make a mistake, you've got to take responsibility," the Late Late Show host said, seconds before abdicating the vast majority of that responsibility
Aux News James Corden
Less than a week after assuring The New York Times that being the “most abusive customer” Balthazar has seen in 25 years doesn’t actually count as doing “anything wrong, on any level,” late night’s favorite Tiny Cretin Of A Man is finally owning up to his bad behavior… apparently because his daddy told him to.
“Never complain, never explain is very much my motto,” the Late Late Show host reiterated on Monday night’s broadcast, before reassuring the audience that he certainly did not come to this grand gesture of public humility on his own terms. “But as my dad pointed out to me on Saturday, he said ‘son, well you did complain, so you might need to explain.’”
“Look, when you make a mistake, you’ve got to take responsibility,” he continued, which would have been a great start if he had actually decided to, you know, take any.
Instead, the host launched into a four-minute masterclass in the celebrity non-apology, complete with his own personal game of Celebrities Read Mean Tweets, subtle shade on the “lovely” server and restaurant manager for bringing out four glasses of champagne as an apology even though “it was too early to start drinking,” passive aggression toward restaurant owner Keith McNally for blowing up the whole event on Instagram, a claim that the hair-in-food incident was “back in 2014" (McNally’s post vaguely dates it as “June”), a bizarre assertion that his wife’s infamous egg yolk omelet was such a big deal because she has a “serious food allergy” (presumably to egg whites? which… okay), and the crowning jewel, this sentence: “Because I didn’t shout or scream, like I didn’t get up out of my seat, I didn’t call anyone names or use derogatory language, I’ve been walking around thinking that I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“But the truth is, I have,” he eventually acquiesces. “I made a rude comment and it was wrong. It was an unnecessary comment, it was ungracious to the server.” Earlier in the segment, he also expressed that he understands “the difficulties of being a server… I have such respect, and I value anyone who does such a job.”
It isn’t up to us to officially accept or reject Corden’s apology, but we do feel it would be remiss not to point out that McNally wrote the following in an Instagram post four days ago: “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.” Hmm… sure seems fishy to us.
You can watch Corden’s full “apology” below:
91 Comments
“presumably to egg whites? which… okay”Technically the white is supposed to be the allergenic part, which is why when you make baby food it’s advised to use the yolks only.That said, if I had a “serious” allergy to egg whites, I wouldn’t be ordering omelets at a restaurant. It seems too easy for some white to get in there. Also, mustn’t it take like 10 eggs to get enough yolks for an omelet? How often does she have these? Is her cholesterol through the roof. Anyway her health is none of my business. Corden still seems like a dick, but that’s not anything new so I don’t know why anyone cares.
When you have an egg white allergy you’re generally advised to avoid eggs altogether because it’s basically impossible to completely separate them.
That’s certainly what I would imagine to be the case! I mean they are literally touching and slimy. When I made my kids’ baby food I would boil the egg and separate the yolk that way, but that’s because it was just a precaution (they ultimately did not have egg allergies). If I knew for a fact they had egg white allergies I’d just skip the egg altogether.
At home you can probably swing it, but at a restaurant there’s so much risk for cross-contamination. You’re knowingly taking on a risk.
Yeah, I have a latex allergy that also gets triggered by some very delicious fruits. I don’t get full-on anaphylaxis from the fruit, but I’m not going to fuck around with it enough for it to possibly happen. I’m not going to walk into a restaurant and order a dish that normally has those fruits in it because I don’t want my allergy triggered if there’s an preparation mishap.Even if I did, if the first attempt to make the food couldn’t prevent the allergen from being in it, I would choose another dish altogether. This is clearly a bullshit smokescreen from Corden, anybody with food allergies will tell you as much.
Which fruits?[I ask not to be nosy, but just because I’m just interested to know which fruits contain (or are related to) latex. I’m a huge fan of jackfruit, and when “butchering” one it oozes all this rubber-like goo on my hands. I’ve always kind of wondered if it’s related to the rubber tree and if it’s oozing latex or what, but I guess not interested enough to actually look it up. So when you mentioned multiple fruits that triggered your allergy I was intrigued.PS Jackfruit is awesome. Tree: butchering:
Figs, Dates, Bananas and Melons make my throat scratchy, lips swollen and face hot. The first two are easy enough to avoid, but the latter I gotta be on the lookout for in smoothies and desserts.
Interesting, such a wide variety.
Yeah, this is the kind of stuff that gives people with actual life-threatening allergies a bad name.
You very clearly care. About something. Hence you taking the time to comment.
1) allergies aside, an egg yolk omelette sounds downright upsetting. 2) in all this, Corden has pulled my least favorite bad-customer move, which is to downright yell at the floor-level waitstaff, then behave graciously and politely to the manager who eventually shows up. It’s psychotic, gaslighting behavior, and it tells me everything I need to know about his character.
Recently I was at Five Guys for dinner. The place was understaffed (like a lot of places these days), and there was a pretty serious backlog. I probably waited 30 minutes for my meal, but I understood what was going on, and just waited patiently. Other patrons, not so much. One guy started yelling over the the counter at the line cooks wondering why his meal wasn’t ready while door dash giggers were coming in and getting their meals (nevermind that they placed their order in advance), and I swear, I have never felt such temptation to be violent toward a stranger. Because people who yell at, who abuse waitstaff, are the lowest of the low, and deserve a black eye and a bloody nose.
There was a Five Guys near my old job, and the way we’d invite someone to go with us was to say “Feel like making a mistake today?” lolFive Guys is sooooo good but it’s sooooo much food afterwards you just feel awful. It’s so good though.
Why not do something like order one meal for two people, or two meals for three people?
Because we want all of it. lol
Why not just, you know, not finish it and save the rest?
Well I haven’t been in years, but I can tell you it was because I’m not about to eat reheated french fries that have been sitting in a paper bag in my office all afternoon? I’ll just eat what I want and throw the rest away, but thanks for this awesome advice which no one has ever thought of before.
lmao
I was gently ribbing you, not trying to blow your mind with original advice.
lol
I was genuinely curious, and certainly not trying to blow your mind with an original suggestion. I suppose I’m lucky enough to avoid dickishness on the internet often enough to consider yours unwarranted.
You were really “genuinely curious” about why someone might eat more than is good for them every once in a while and why people aren’t out here re-heating half-eaten fast food hamburgers and fries for dinner? lol Genuinely? Okay.
and 5 Guys is SOOOO fucking expensive for cheeseburgers and fries. AND I also hate that a single (or “junior”) is a little less than I want to eat, and a double (or “normal”) is a little more than I want to eat. And you reek of fried food if you decide to sit down. (don’t ask if I still eat there in spite of all this LOL)
It really is expensive. I haven’t been in years because as I get older I can’t make many mistakes like that anymore. lol The other thing is on top of the burger though they give you like a gallon bag full of fries. And they’re so good! But so greasy! Which is why you smell like oil the rest of the day. The worst. I know you still eat there. LOL Nobody blames you. Now I’m craving it as I sit here eating this dumbass salad.
What gets me is that yelling at service staff is a pretty dumb tactical choice. Sure, you could berate them into giving you more attention or comping something, but they could just as easily spit in your food or make your life a living hell by deliberately slow-walking your order. It’s basically an open admission that their number-one concern is making service staff feel bad, because they’re the only people that person can boss around.
They’re playing a dangerous game too. Remember what they said in the movie “Waiting:” “Don’t fuck with the people who prepare your food.”
I was at Wingstop not too long ago, and the person running the register informed a woman complaining that, apparently, the computer system never registered her online order but they were working on getting it ready as quickly as they could. She started berating him, and just being generally unpleasant, before finally leaving 5 minutes later. Just… don’t do that. These people are 1) people and 2) not responsible for those sorts of glitches. It takes absolutely no effort to just be nice to people.
next time you witness that you have my permission to go postal on that dickhead LOL, because I think the entire country needs more people getting in the face of obnoxious pricks ( Cult 45 ) everywhere and putting them in their place. Somehow people like that have either evaded real consequences for that bullshit in their lifetime, or have found a way to justify any animus that has arisen from it, but they simply need to learn unequivocally it’s unacceptable and wrong.
I took consolation from the fact that this guy was obese, almost morbidly so, and probably lives a miserable, self-hating life that will end prematurely due to heart disease and complications from diabetes.
What’s your favorite bad-customer move?
Saying “you too” when told to enjoy your show/meal; absolutely harmlessly inconsiderate, kinda funny depending on your mood.
Oh no! I hope people read this from me as a genuine mistake born out of social awkwardness. Was not aware that it could be interpreted as passive-aggressive
Same
It’s not; I was just thinking of the least harmless “bad” thing a customer could do. It’s literally an attempt at good manners, just executed on auto-pilot.
I always thought that one was more of a brain glitch than any kind of bad customer move; since 90% of professional interactions end with some version of “Enjoy your day!”, I assume that most people are just kind of instinctively primed to respond with some version of “You as well!” and aren’t quite ready for when the response doesn’t match the actual ending. Certainly I’ve fallen into that trap before and that’s usually been the cause.
Exactly; it’s an attempt at good manners, just slightly lacking in consideration or mindfulness.
When they take their business elsewhere.
(The truly bad ones at least.)
In electronics retail for me it was neckbeards coming in, saying “Pffft, I can get this for 3/4 of the price from America”, then six months later coming in with their grey import that stopped working and insisting we fix it under warranty because it was a Sony and we were the Official Sony Repairers. Oh, you rancid mouthbreather: that’s not how it works. Off you fuck…or pay more than you saved on grey importing to fix it. That, and Karens who were genuinely shocked and angered that the minimum-wage guy did not have the CEO of Samsung on speed dial and couldn’t call them up and ask them to make a special LCD TV with a chartreuse frame to match the living they spent “MORE THAN YOU MAKE IN A YEAR” repainting.
Replying to “would you like the soup or salad?” with “thank you, I’d love a super salad”.
WRT 1: if I was allergic to even a bit of egg white, I would probably stop eating eggs altogether? Like, if I was allergic to bacon fat but not bacon meat, I’d probably just stop eating bacon altogether?Also, does this mean she doesn’t eat pretty much any baked good?
I have never seen someone tear a server a new one and then act sane with the manager; normally that psychosis extends (if not worsens) once the manager shows up. If anything, what’s far more cringey to me is watching the manager turn on the server to appease the customer. My daughter is a server and she says all the time if a manager did that to her she’d quit on the spot, and I told her she has my blessing to do so; even if she actually did fuck up, there is a time and place to handle that, and being a server is already humiliating enough without adding to it.
Trust me, as someone with nearly two decades in food service, retail, and customer service, people pull this two-faced shit all the time; lots of people subscribe to the “complain until you get what you want” approach, especially via phone and live chat.
On top of that, management forces customer-facing staff to be unmoving in enforcing the rules; only the managers can break those rules, you can only pass someone to a manager if they’re truly making a stink, and you’re reprimanded otherwise. So the system forces the customer to make a stink until the customer-facing staff is berated and humiliated enough, then the manager swoops in and plays good guy, usually resulting in the scenario your daughter describes, where the manager and customer basically cement a brief friendship over how useless and unhelpful you’ve been. Most bad customers know this is how it works, and view their first point of contact as an obstacle to rip through in order to get “real help.”
The fact that he continues to act like this in public, despite multiple callouts over the past 2-3 years, raising this to near-Ellen DeGeneres levels of Nice-on-TV/Dick-in-public duality, is a strong indicator that he has a long way to go mentally before he really accepts and does anything meaningful about his shitty behavior.
I guess his wife’s food allergies must just be REALLY bad.
Odd coincidence that this is all coming out as Corden has announced it’s his last season on the Late Late Show, just like the Ellen allegations preceded her final season…
It’s not just coming out, though. These stories have been coming out for several years about Corden.
A quick perusal of the available-online menu doesn’t reveal any egg yolk omelettes, so it’s even BETTER than we thought because this was an off-menu request from a famous person, who then loudly berated the server when the item he ordered -which they don’t usually make because has anyone ever made an egg yolk omelette- was not made to his exacting standards.
It sounds like he was mad because they reported a food allergy and then the staff missed it.Several years ago, I had a girlfriend who was diabetic. When we started dating, I was a bit judgy with how quickly she got annoyed with servers re: food stuff. I ended up becoming quite a bit more understanding — it can be really discouraging and frustrating to say “I’m diabetic: are you sure this is diet soda?” and then have a blood sugar spike because some waiter either forgot or didn’t think it was important enough to focus on. I would imagine people with severe food allergies go through a similar thing.I’m not excusing being rude to waitstaff, btw, I’m just saying if there’s a food allergy in play I can see how tempers would flare out of concern for his wife rather than “rah rah I’m a celebrity and I need everything perfect.”
There’s a wide gulf between being curt in the midst of frustration and literal screaming.
But why was he yelling at the server “You can’t do your job!”? The complaint was apparently that there was a “little bit” of egg white in the omelet, so clearly the server communicated that it was to be an egg yolk omelet; the chef just made a mistake (and it’s not easy to get zero white in when separating eggs, which, again, if I’m deathly allergic to even a tiny bit of egg white, I’m not eating an egg yolk omelet unless I made it myself). It’s not as if she returned with an egg white omelet, or even a regular egg omelet. She did her job. Why did he have to blow up at her?And if anybody’s temper would flare, why didn’t the wife’s? It’s her allergy. She couldn’t speak up for herself? I wouldn’t just sit there letting my husband berate a server over my omelet.Anyway I get what you’re saying—my daughter has a food allergy—but at the same time…at least yell at the right person, if you have to yell at all, and then don’t be nice to the manager after you shat all over the underlings. Weird how his temper only flared around a lowly server.
She couldn’t speak up for herself? I wouldn’t just sit there letting my husband berate…
lol dang yeah I guess it’s not uncommon.
But sometimes the yolk has a little white thing in it, I see it sometimes when I make my scrambled eggs, maybe the zygote trying to attach and grow?
Pretty sure The Onion already covered thishttps://www.theonion.com/james-corden-breaks-silence-on-restaurant-controversy-1849687955
Nope, not buying his performance here. I don’t buy it based on the stories I’ve heard and read about his behaviour not just in the States. Has he apologised personally to the staff he had a pop at? No? Then he can choke on a big fat one, the wee dick.
Aren’t we done with this prick yet? He’s THE MOST phony pos on TV already, and that’s saying something. He quit his show…can we move up the date on him and get him off our screens? He can go join that other jerk we dismissed back to the UK, Piers Morgan, and they can start a pity party show together on some BBC channel there.
No chance; you wanted Corden, you’re keeping him.
Christ, I never thought I’d miss the halcyon days of having multiple daily stories about Don’t Worry Darling, but if that’s given way to multiple daily stories about James Corden, please let’s go back to the other thing.
He doesn’t bring up that after he spoke to the owner, he had that absolutely bizarre interview where he said to the interviewer that asking about this newsworthy event to the person involved was “beneath” them. The whole thing was done and then he went back on his apology to the owner.That said, there is a lot of equivocating and rationalizing and I don’t like him, but he did admit to doing something, anything wrong, so that puts him ahead of some others.
If there’s one thing Brits are good at it’s abdicating.
But not pronouncing aluminum or disoriented.
LIH-tral-lee!
They should sheh-dyool some skool time.
I grew up in Philadelphia; I probably should not indulge in this particular tom-foolery.
I lived for years in Boston and Pittsburgh. I get it.
then you must know this one:
1-L lama: a religious leader
2-L llama: a beast of burden
3-L lllamah: a really big fire in Boston
When the language you all speak is “American”, you can moan about it. Until then, English English is correct.After all, you don’t call the other elements radum, uranum and lithum, do you?(That said, “inflammable” can piss right off. It’s nought but an engine of chaos.)
I also don’t call it carbion, you bovril-swilling bell-end.I do like your curses, though.
There isn’t a well-established naming convention of elements ending -ion; there is for -ium, you (what’s the most uniquely and unflatteringly American thing?) school shootering (nope, too far) Black-Friday-sale rioting (better) ne’er-do-well.
What’s that Stewart Lee line?“Seeing the American in their natural environment – The fast food joint/the Theme Park/the Race Riot/The High School Massacre”
Oh go return the Rosetta Stone.
You can prise the Rosetta Stone from my cold, dead hands.(When I typed the above I didn’t realise that “prise” was another word that differed in UK and American English)
Nah, you keep it. I already know French. And I’m not touching a dead person.Where’s dirtside when you need them? They’re *all about* that dead body stuff…
Oh, I dunno. School shootering has a nice ring to it.
That’s a different pattern though, isn’t it? All the other have an “(i)um” suffix.
Fookin’ ‘ell! Wot’s this oik talking about?
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180207-how-americans-preserved-british-english
The English – they managed to bastardize their own language.
“After all, you don’t call the other elements radum, uranum and lithum, do you?”
No, because that’s not how they’re spelled.
It’s the spelling of Aluminium/Aluminum that’s the contention, not the pronunciation.
I believe you mean spellening and pronuncionation.
Stop expecting Corden to apologize, because he’s not going to. Corden is well-known as an asshole.
It is time for AV Club to ask employees at CBS if James Corden is a workplace bully? I say it is. Let’s nail him for workplace misconduct.
Do you work for James Corden? Has James Corden bullied you? Has he disrespected you? Has he ever slapped you? Send in a tip!
My various news feeds have had daily stories about this for at least a week. I’ve seen headlines on both the Post and the Times’ site. After being bombarded so hard, I actually clicked and read one of the stories. Why does anyone care that some guy with a TV show may have been rude to somebody once, twice or even a dozen times? I’m sorry, but there are real issues in the world and this doesn’t even make the bottom of the list.ETA: Though all the headlines did prompt me to look up what’s up with Balthazar Getty. I hadn’t thought about him in years.
I think I speak for all of the UK when I say
No returns, no refunds
Still do not understand why he is so popular.
Because he’s the fat lady who sings.
I’d like someone to interview the waitstaff and see who they think is the worst patron they ever served. Odds are it’s someone we’ve never heard of.
And that helps what?
can we please move on to something else now? this arrogant prick is NOT going to apologize, this is the closest we will ever get to that. He’s a jerk, there was proof of that before this happened. He could have filmed himself apologizing in person to the servers and declining the 10 years of free food, it would have been a good bit and resolved the situation, but he didn’t because he thinks servers are subhumans meant to serve talented, special people like him.
can we please move on to something else now?
Ok, fine!
Today in Olivia Wilde…
personally I’m still DYING to know what’s in that secret salad dressing. Hoping the “secret ingredient” was methadone LOL.
He didn’t just not take responsibility—he lied. A lot.
1. If you’re allergic to eggs, the yolks are more toxic to you than the whites. This isn’t about an an allergy. It’s about an invented preciousness to require extra effort from others.
2. He didn’t just complain. He screamed abuses at the servers.
3. He produced the hair that he “found in his food” after he finished his meal. He screamed abuses and demanded free food and free drinks. That’s a cheap scammer’s ruse.
4. McNally had it right the first time, and this non-apology makes it even more obvious: Corden is a tiny cretin of a man, and his “Mr. Nice Guy” act is just an act.
What’s with that picture? He looks like he’s trying not to pee his pants or he’s about to tell us a story about Randy Beaman.