James Corden has finally addressed what happened at Balthazar in detail.
The 44-year-old issued a lengthy statement on Monday (October 24) during his The Late Late Show monologue. He revealed his side of what happened, explained why he initially stated that he “did nothing wrong,” and has also now finally admitted that he did in fact actually do something wrong.
Last week, James was banned from NYC restaurant Balthazar by owner Keith McNally, who spoke out to call James “the most abusive customer to my Balthazar servers since the restaurant opened 25 years ago.” He also declared James to be a “tiny Cretin of a man” and shared two incidents of his poor behavior.
Many hours later, Keith said that James called to apologize “profusely” and he has unbanned him from Balthazar. And then James did an interview stating that he did not feel like he did anything wrong.
Now, James is addressing everything extensively. He began by saying:
“Last week, there were stories about me being banned from a restaurant and at the time, I considered tweeting about it or Instagramming about it. But whenever these sorts of moments come my way, I like to adopt quite a British attitude of ‘Keep calm and carry on.’ Things are going to get written about me. Never complain, never explain.”
He said that he wanted to explain what happened from his perspective:
“A couple of weeks ago I was in New York with some friends. And we went for breakfast at one of my absolute favorite restaurants, a place called Balthazar. We sit down and we ordered. And my wife explained that she has a serious foot allergy. My wife was given the food she was allergic to.”
James then said that they sent the food back, adding:
“As her meal came wrong to the table the third time, in the heat of the moment, I made a sarcastic, rude comment about cooking it myself. And it is a comment I deeply regret.”
He went on to say that he respects and values people who work in the restaurant industry:
“I understand the difficulties of being a server. I worked shifts at restaurants for years. I have such respect and I value anyone that does such a job—and the team at that restaurant are so great, that’s why I love it there. The restaurant manager and the server there were lovely, they brought out four glasses of champagne as an apology, but we were like, ‘That’s not necessary, we don’t need it.’”
James also spoke candidly about why he initially said he did not do anything wrong:
“Because I didn’t shout or scream or 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. I made a rude comment and it was wrong. It was an unnecessary comment. It was ungracious to the server.”
He relayed what happened when he called Keith following the very public call out:
“I called him straight away and I told him how upset I was that anybody was hurt by anything that I had said. We had a good talk. He appreciated the call.
I was happy that we got to clear the air and I felt like we dealt with it privately. But by this point, the story was out there. People were upset.”
And he expressed his desire to apologize to those who were affected by his actions:
“I accept everybody’s opinion. I also hate, as I said to the owner that day, that I’ve upset anybody ever. It was never my intention, it just wasn’t. And I love that restaurant, I love the staff there.
I hope I’m allowed in again one day, so when I’m back in New York, I can go there and apologize in person, which is something I would absolutely do.”
