Aaaaaand re-banned.
The James Corden restaurant saga continues. The Late Late Show host could have shown grace and good character here with a proper apology — but then again if that’s who he was, he wouldn’t be in this position in the first place, right?
As you probably heard, the comedian’s week started off with a ban from NYC hotspot Balthazar. The restaurant’s owner, Keith McNally, came out swinging on Monday morning, publicly declaring Corden was banned for being “the most abusive customer to my Balthazar servers since the restaurant opened 25 years ago.” He went on to describe two separate incidents at the restaurant in which he was nasty to servers and management — and even noted that this behavior had been observed at his previous restaurant, Cafe Luxembourg, years previous.
Related: MORE Stories Have Come Out About Corden’s Treatment Of Staff Since!
Just hours later, the restaurateur unbanned James after he called up and “apologized profusely” for the behavior. McNally added that “anyone magnanimous enough to apologize to a deadbeat layabout like me (and my staff) doesn’t deserve to be banned from anywhere.”
However, the talk show host quickly 86’ed all that good will and served a side of smugness. Proving whatever apology he fed Keith was just blowing smoke, he told the New York Times in an interview that he thought the idea he was being criticized on Twitter for nothing more than sending back some food was “insane.” Just totally downplaying any description of his “extremely nasty” behavior, the fact he wasn’t just being accused of returning food but of yelling at staff. He brushed off all responsibility, saying:
“I haven’t done anything wrong, on any level.”
Wow.
Unsurprisingly, Keith McNally was not happy about this two-faced contrition in private and self-righteousness in public. He returned to Instagram on Friday, blasting:
“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.”
Yup! McNally then made clear whose side he was on — and that he absolutely thinks Corden is “lying”:
“Although I didn’t witness the incident, lots of my restaurant’s floor staff did. They had nothing to gain by lying. Corden did.”
The restaurateur then got RAW on Corden, quipping:
“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.”
He then made a wild offer:
“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.”
We applaud Keith trying to get apologies for his employees — after all, they’re the ones Corden should have been apologizing to in the first place! But this isn’t exactly the best offer for Corden. We mean… 10 years of free food sounds great, but when it’s in a place where everyone knows you as the biggest jerk? That’s a decade of free spit in your food. At best.
See Keith’s furious full response (below):
[Image via Balthazar/Late Late Show/YouTube.]
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