James Corden's latest controversy is no laughing matter.
After being criticized for repeating a joke from Ricky Gervais nearly word-for-word on the Late Late Show Oct. 31, the host took to social media to explain the mix-up.
"Inadvertently told a brilliant Ricky Gervais joke on the show last night, obviously not knowing it came from him," James tweeted Nov. 1. "It's brilliant, because it's a Ricky Gervais joke. You can watch all Ricky's excellent specials on Netflix."
James, 44, responded to critics one day after receiving backlash from fans who accused him of plagiarizing the joke from Ricky's 2018 Netflix special Humanity on the CBS late-night talk show.
"When you see Elon Musk talk about Twitter, he does this thing where he goes, ‘It's the town square,'" James said at the time, per The Hollywood Reporter. "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 wanna play the guitar!' But that sign wasn't for you, it was for somebody else—you don't have to get mad about all of it."
The joke was very similar to one Ricky, 61, shared in the stand-up special, where the comedian expressed what he hated about irrelevant criticism from irate Twitter users.
"[It's] like going into a town square, and seeing a big notice board that says, ‘Notice: Guitar lessons,' and going: ‘I don't f--king want guitar lessons!'" Ricky said in the special. "Fine! It's not for you, then. Just walk away, don't worry about it."
After fans criticized James' recycled joke, The Office creator entered the chat, tweeting Nov. 1, "The bit about the town square advert for guitar lessons is brilliant."
Ricky then deleted the tweet, explaining to a fan that he "started to feel sorry" for the Cats actor.
"I reckon one of the writers ‘came up with it' for him," he added. "I doubt he would knowingly just copy such a famous stand up routine word for word like that."