James Corden responded to an accusation that he stole a joke from Ricky Gervais on Tuesday.
The Late Late Show host was accused of stealing the British comedian's joke after an episode of his talk show aired on Monday.
In his opening monologue, James mocked Elon Musk's recent purchase of Twitter.
"When you see Elon Musk talk about Twitter he does this thing where he goes, 'Well, it's the town square,'" he said. "But it isn't. Because if someone puts up a poster in a town square that says 'guitar lessons available,' you don't get people in the town going 'I don't want to play the 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."
James' words resemble a joke Ricky told during his 2018 stand-up show Humanity, in which he described Twitter as "like going into a town square and there's a notice for guitar lessons and you go, 'But I don't f**king want guitar lessons!'"
He concluded, "Fine, it's not for you then, just walk away, don't worry about it."
Ricky reacted to the viral comparison clip by commenting sarcastically in a since-deleted tweet, "(Corden's) bit about the town square advert for guitar lessons is brilliant."
James later addressed the similarities between the jokes in a tweet from his talk show's account.
"Inadvertently told a brilliant Ricky Gervais joke on the show last night, obviously not knowing it came from him," the television personality wrote. "It's brilliant, because it's a Ricky Gervais joke. You can watch all Ricky's excellent specials on Netflix."
