British TV Director Calls James Corden “Difficult” and “Obnoxious”: “I Hope I Never Ever Work With You Again”

James Corden will never beat those allegations. After being slammed for his inappropriate behavior by NYC staple Balthazar and Spice Girl Mel B, television director Craig Duncan has labeled him as “the most difficult and obnoxious presenter” he’s ever worked with. 

The director took to his YouTube channel to put Corden on blast, recalling an interaction they had while shooting a 2013 episode of the British game show The League of Their Own, which starred Corden, Jack Whitehall, Andrew Flintoff, and Jamie Redknapp. (h/t AV Club)

Duncan shared that the episode – season seven, episode three – involved a cooking component and upon being scouted, he was asked, “How are you working with difficult presenters?” 

Before accepting the position, the director observed a rehearsal for the show where Corden berated a staffer for the script, claiming that it included unfunny jokes. 

Duncan gave Corden the benefit of the doubt, saying he left the day thinking, “I dunno, maybe he was having a bad day, I thought, and the writing had just not been up to scratch, but I definitely thought, ‘Man, you know, somebody wrote that, not nice to do that.’” 

He continued, “But television isn’t for the faint-hearted and sometimes you have to take these knocks on the chin. I just kept thinking of the person who wrote the joke and, the fact that, they’re doing the best with what they’ve been given, which was a garbage show, as far as I was concerned.”

Duncan accepted the gig and enjoyed working with the show’s production crew. However, while they were setting up the shoot, the Late Late Show host stormed on set and had an outburst that changed everything.

“We were working it out when old bugger-lugs pipes up, ‘What the fuck is going on here? It’s obvious what you do. You put a camera there. You put a camera there. You put a camera there. You put a camera there. It’s so obvious how you shoot it, it’s stupid,'” Craig recalled. 

He continued, “And I’m like, ‘He’s absolutely right, guys, let’s do that, that’s the best thing to do.'”

Allegedly, the outburst was caused by Corden needing to leave set early and the previous segment running over. Craig continued to share that the comedian was “late 45 minutes from his scheduled,” meanwhile, he would’ve been done in six minutes.

Craig said, “So, cheers, James, you got your way! Well done for treading all over my toes, I don’t care, I’ll get paid at the end of the day, and I hope I never ever work with you again!”

In response to the YouTube video gaining traction, Craig offered some additional context in the comment section, calling the video a “benign anecdote” that he didn’t think would make headlines. 

He continued, “For the media to pick up on James Corden being rude to me 10 years ago is insane. It’s a non-story as far as I’m concerned. Bosses are ‘short’ with staff all the time. James never told me “you’re stupid” in fact, I can’t remember the exact things he said.” 

Craig said that Corden’s outburst “probably ‘felt’ worse” than it actually was. 

He added, “Someone was rude to me 10 years ago. So what? Well, if you have had a big celeb yell at you – it impacts you for a long time. This video is me standing up to it and citing James as an example of the bad behavior that the industry ignores all the time.” 

Craig’s video has been viewed over 11K times, in comparison to his other videos – which, on average, receive roughly 60-100 views. The director has been active on the platform since 2014 and currently has 2.42K subscribers with 171 videos.

In addition to A League of Their Own, Craig has directed Chateau DIY for Channel 4 and Antiques Road Trip for BBC. 

Corden has yet to publicly respond to Craig’s video.