James Corden has been branded the ‘most difficult and obnoxious presenter’ by a director who worked with him on a popular panel show.
The 44-year-old actor has come under fire from Craig Duncan, who directed an episode of A League Of Their Own.
It comes six months after Corden faced backlash for screaming at staff at the Balthazar restaurant in New York because his wife received an egg yolk omelette with egg white in it.
Corden featured on sports-based comedy A League Of Their Own from 2010 until 2019 and Craig worked with him on an episode from season seven of the show.
Craig said he was asked to direct a pre-recorded Masterchef-style challenge which would then feature on the show, but slammed James as ‘difficult’ to work with.
In a video shared to his YouTube channel Fludded, he said: ‘The most difficult and obnoxious presenter I’ve ever worked with is James Corden.’
Not impressed: James Corden has been branded the ‘most difficult and obnoxious presenter’ by a director who has worked with him
‘Difficult and obnoxious’: The actor, 44, has come under fire from Craig Duncan, who worked with James on an episode of A League Of Their Own and has criticised his behaviour
He explained that he was tasked with directing Corden and his co-stars Freddie Flintoff, Jamie Redknapp and Jack Whitehall in the cooking challenge.
Craig claimed he was told to go to a rehearsal to ‘witness James at work’ before agreeing to film.
Recalling the conversation, he said: ‘They said, “How are you at working with difficult presenters?” I say, “Oh right, ok. Well, I’ve filmed the Three Tenors before, and you can’t get more of a prima donna than an opera singer”.’
Watching the rehearsal, Craig claimed Corden took issue with the card he had to read and had branded the joke as ‘s**t’ and asked it to be rewritten.
Craig said: ‘It came to a point where he had to read from a card. It was kind of a joke in there, and he just looked at it like, “That’s not funny, that’s not funny. It’s s**t, we have to rewrite that”.
‘I don’t know maybe he was having a bad day or the writing’s not up to scratch, but I definitely thought, man somebody wrote that, not nice to do that. But television isn’t for the faint-hearted and sometimes you have to take those knocks on the chin.’
However, Craig said he still decided to direct the challenge for the show, but claimed things became tense on set as Corden was only available for a limited time to film.
Craig said Jack, Freddie and Jamie were all very friendly and but claimed he felt there was a ‘creeping sense of anxiety’ on the set as people were ‘clock-watching’.
The director said filming was going ‘really well’ and everyone was being really ‘receptive’, until the last five minutes when they had to film the reveal of which star had won the cooking challenge.
Craig claimed he and the crew were working out how to film the last segment to ‘save time’ when James ‘piped up’ and ‘treaded all over his toes’.
He said: ‘We were working it out, when old buggerlugs pipes up, “What the f**k is going on here? It’s obvious what you do – you put a camera there, you put a camera there (…) It’s so obvious how you shoot it, you’re stupid”.’
Craig claimed he told the presenter he was ‘absolutely right’ to appease him and told the camera crew that was the ‘best thing to do’.
He said Corden ended up being 45 minutes late back to the studio after the ordeal, but he claimed he would have had the star finished in just six minutes without the interruption.
Criticised: Craig said he was asked to direct a pre-recorded Masterchef-style challenge which would then feature on the show, but slammed James as ‘difficult’ to work with
Fuming: In a video shared to his YouTube channel, Craig (pictured) said: ‘The most difficult and obnoxious presenter I’ve ever worked with is James Corden’
‘I hope I never, ever work with [James] again,’ Craig added.
MailOnline has contacted Corden’s representatives for comment.
The star was also branded a ‘tiny cretin of a man’ and banned last year by the owner of New York restaurant Balthazar, who claimed he is the ‘most abusive customer ever’.
Late last year, Keith McNally announced on Instagram that Corden was banned from the restaurant as punishment for rude and childish behaviour on two occasions.
On the first occasion, Corden was upset that a hair had been found in his food and demanded free drinks to make up for it, according to McNally.
The second occasion involved his wife Julia ordering an egg-yolk omelette and receiving a plate with egg white on it. The final straw was when the remade omelette was sent out with a side of home fries instead of salad.
Corden later apologised for his behaviour and Keith lifted his ban.
In November, James apologised to fellow comedian Ricky Gervais after ‘inadvertently’ using his 2018 stand-up joke on his Late Late Show.
Ricky, 61, tweeted a clip from the TV host’s show on Halloween night in which Corden repeated the joke from his Netflix stand-up gig Ricky Gervais: Humanity.
Corden wrote on Twitter: ‘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.’
Ricky then shared a clip of Corden repeating the joke, saying: ‘The bit about the town square advert for guitar lessons is brilliant.’
But the comedian later said he deleted the tweet because he ‘felt sorry for’ James.
Telling the joke, James said on the show: ‘If someone puts up a poster in a town square that says “guitar lessons available”, like you don’t get people in the town going, “I don’t want to play guitar! I want to play the piano you piece of s**t!”
‘Well that sign wasn’t for you. It was for somebody else! You don’t have to get mad about all of it.’
But James’ joke was a copy – practically word for word – of Ricky’s 2018 joke.
Ricky said in his comedy sketch: ‘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”.’
Awkward: In November, James apologised to Ricky Gervais (pictured) after ‘inadvertently’ using his 2018 stand-up joke on his Late Late Show
Apology: James wrote on the social media site: ‘Inadvertently told a brilliant Ricky Gervais joke on the show last night, obviously not knowing it came from him’
Controversy: James was also recently accused by staff at Balthazar of screaming at them after they served his wife received an egg-yolk omelette with egg-white in it
He added: ‘Fine, it’s not for you then, just walk away. Don’t worry about it!’
Ricky noticed how James’ sketch was copied from his own 2018 and tweeted about it.
When a fan asked the British comedian whether Corden had asked permission to use the joke, he said: ‘No. 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.’
The Late Late Show later deleted the video of James making the joke from their Twitter page.
