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
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: