James Corden attended the Los Angeles premiere of his new show Mammals after a week of plagiarism claims that followed a feud with a restaurant owner.
The host of The Late Late Show with James Corden attended the LA event alongside his wife Julia Carey on Wednesday evening. Mammals is an upcoming six-part show written by Jez Butterworth (Ford v Ferrari) and starring Corden, Sally Hawkins, Melia Kreiling, and Colin Morgan.
It comes as a welcome distraction after Corden made the news recently for all the wrong reasons—first, for a feud with the owner of the New York restaurant Balthazar’s, and then for “inadvertently” stealing a joke from Ricky Gervais for his CBS show.
Corden and his wife were joined by a number of people involved with Mammals at the red carpet premiere and reception at The West Hollywood EDITION in Los Angeles, California. Co-creator Butterworth, actress Kreiling, and a number of Amazon executives were also in attendance.
The screening of Mammals was reportedly met with a standing ovation from the audience.
Tony Award-winning writer Butterworth told the crowd, “What you’re going to see tonight is exactly what I meant and for that, I feel completely blessed by everybody who has been involved in the process from the very beginning—everybody at Amazon who understood what this thing was, the cast who just got it in their bones.”
Corden added, “As soon as Amazon read the show, it was so clear that they absolutely understood what it was and what it could be. And I couldn’t be more proud to share this with you tonight.”
In late October, Corden started trending on social media after Balthazar restaurateur Keith McNally wrote on Instagram how Corden was banned from his premises for rude behavior. Corden called McNally to apologize and was forgiven. However, the business owner was unhappy with Corden’s subsequent interviews about the incident and wrote on October 31 that he had “given up on James Corden. For Good.”
Corden was then pulled into more drama after he used a joke written by Ricky Gervais during his monologue on The Late Late Show on October 31. Gervais initially mocked the incident before deleting his tweet, telling his followers that one of Corden’s writers probably “came up with it.”
Corden then acknowledged the mistake and tweeted via the Late Late Show account. “Inadvertently told a brilliant Ricky Gervais joke on the show last night, obviously not knowing it came from him. It’s brilliant, because it’s a Ricky Gervais joke. You can watch all Ricky’s excellent specials on Netflix,” Corden wrote, signing off with “J x.”
Gervais, Corden, and The Late Late Show were all contacted by Newsweek for comment.
Mammals premieres with all six episodes on November 11 on Prime Video.