Ricky Gervais has responded after he spotted James Corden appear to repeat one his jokes 'word for word.' During Monday night's episode of The Late Late Show with James Corden, the TV host delivered a monologue about Elon Musk and his takeover of Twitter.
The Gavin and Stacey star raised laughs as he mentioned on the American chat show reports that the new Twitter CEO was planning to charge verified users $20 a month to keep their blue ticks.
He said: "When you see Elon Musk talk about Twitter, he does this thing where he goes 'It's the town square.' And he continued: "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 wanna play the piano you piece of s***!'"
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He added: "But that sign wasn't for you, it was for somebody else, you don't have to get mad about all of it." There was delighted laughter in the audience at this piece of stinging satire.
But viewers took to Twitter as they thought they recognised the joke as a copy of one that The Office and After Life star had made in his stand-up show Humanity released on Netflix in 2018. And the Golden Globes host himself decided to address the similarity.
Ricky said in his comedy sketch about Twitter users: "They choose to read my tweet, and then take that personally. 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'.'
He added: 'Fine, it's not for you then, just walk away. Don't worry about it!'
@Drew_1981 asked him: "Didn't deliver it like you though. I assume he asked to use that joke?"
Ricky replied "no" and added: "I reckon one of the writers 'came up with it' for him. I doubt he would knowingly just copy such a famous stand up routine word for word like that."
James, 44, was recently embroiled in a saga involving an omelette order that saw him briefly banned from a New York restaurant. The actor and comedian admitted to being "ungracious" during the incident at Balthazar in Manhattan but he said it was "never my intention" to upset the staff.
He addressed the controversy during an episode of The Late Late Show after owner Keith McNally claimed he was "extremely nasty" to staff on two separate occasions. James said: "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 made a rude, rude comment. And it was wrong. It was an unnecessary comment, it was ungracious to the server.”
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