'No one likes him or wants him. He probably wishes he stayed in LA': Why the work has dried up for 'arrogant' James Corden after his return to Britain... as KATIE HIND reveals vicious whispers and how he's been snubbed by TV bosses

There was a time, a decade ago, when James Corden was the most revered man in Hollywood.

You could barely turn a corner in Tinseltown without seeing his giant face beaming at you from a billboard. There to host a high-profile chat show, The Late Late Show, his arrival in Los Angeles had been impossible to miss.

For his launch show, his guest list was headlined by legendary actor Tom Hanks, who Corden told me at the time, he had called personally to make the booking.

The following week David Beckham took centre stage, while his globally-acclaimed Carpool Karaoke – in which Corden drove around with a guest as they were filmed singing along to tracks in the car – attracted stellar names such as then First Lady Michelle Obama and Beatles legend Sir Paul McCartney.

Millions watched and giggled. Corden, the somewhat rotund funny guy from High Wycombe, had landed and he was rumoured to be earning around $9million (£6.7million) a year.

He and wife Julia Carey uprooted their UK lives and bought a stunning $20million mansion in the celebrity enclave of Brentwood. The house boasted a cinema, swimming pool and guest quarters, while Gwyneth Paltrow and Adele were amongst his A-list neighbours.

Each time I saw Corden in Hollywood – where I also lived and worked at the time – he seemed to be having the time of his life, whether it was at an intimate Rolling Stones gig, shopping in Santa Monica or backstage at the CBS studios where his show was made. During the eight years he fronted The Late Late Show, he also cemented his status as a mega star by hosting the Grammys twice and the Tonys twice.

He would share his joy at how much he and his family were loving their time in California and hinted it was where they would stay.

But that was almost 11 years ago now and today life appears to be very different for Corden, the 47-year-old actor and comic who was catapulted to fame back in 2007 with the hit BBC show Gavin and Stacey.

It has been two and a half years since he returned to the UK – to much fanfare, it must be said.

He modestly insisted that he wanted to spend more time with his family and that his decision to bring up his three children in Britain was his motivation to come home.

There was much chatter that Corden would land a highly lucrative deal with a British broadcaster – with his US presenting experience he would, after all, surely be appealing to both the BBC and ITV.

For the latter, having him in their stable alongside the ever-popular Ant and Dec would be an obvious ratings winner.

There was also much talk that he might strike an agreement with a streaming giant such as Netflix or Amazon.

However, none of the above happened. There has been success, such as the finale of Gavin and Stacey, which he co-wrote with his long-standing friend Ruth Jones, and which helped win the 2024 Christmas Day ratings war for BBC, attracting 18 million viewers.

But industry insiders tell me that television bosses are ‘not as keen as you’d expect’ to work with Corden.

One said: ‘It’s amazing isn’t it, you’ve got a guy who has jetted back to Britain after being one of the most successful British exports to Hollywood, yet no channel over here appears to want him on their books.

‘Everything he has done since he has been back has been his own projects where he calls the shots. The truth is that not many people like him – it’s strange as he comes across as such a funny, caring man but behind the cameras, within television production companies and broadcasters, they don’t want to know.

‘While James hasn’t been cancelled, he hasn’t replicated what he did in the US.’

Admittedly, Corden did say on his return to the UK that hosting a nightly show was a tough and very time-consuming gig and so may not have wanted to take on such a gruelling schedule again.

Still, as an industry insider observed this week: ‘It hasn’t worked out that well for him, has it? He took over Hollywood but back in Britain he has kept his head down.’

While Corden has always been kind to me personally – for example, when my father was waiting for a heart transplant some years back, he would regularly message to ask how he was and if a donor had been found – I have struggled to find anyone in the industry who has a good word to say about him.

Corden’s funny-man halo began to slip some time ago. In October 2022 he was banned from New York’s famous Balthazar brasserie after owner Keith McNally described the star as a ‘hugely gifted comedian but a tiny cretin of a man’ for being rude to his waiting staff.

McNally claimed Corden demanded two rounds of free drinks for his table after he said he found a hair in his food, and on a second occasion had screamed at the waiting staff after finding traces of egg white in his wife Julia Carey’s egg yolk omelette.

The ban was lifted when Corden ‘apologised profusely’, but the reputational damage was done.

Rumoured to be not always the most pleasant person to work with, he has been described to me as ‘arrogant’ and ‘sometimes shouty’.

Sources tell me ITV bosses have long ruled out having him on their books, although maybe the bigger surprise is that the BBC haven’t bought him up, especially given Gavin and Stacey’s continuing popularity.

And in yet another sign that Corden is ‘going it alone’, this week it emerged that he and Ruth have set up a new business venture called TidyTwo – a reference to Nessa’s catchphrase ‘Tidy’ on Gavin and Stacey.

Companies House states its business as ‘television programme production’, which prompts the question of whether they are going to make more of their own shows. Corden has also returned to the West End – where his acclaimed stint in The History Boys in 2004 launched his career – since he arrived back in Britain. 

In 2024 he starred in a play called The Constituent, a political drama at London’s Old Vic where he played a man in crisis opposite Anna Maxwell Martin. And last year he appeared in the Broadway revival of Yasmina Reza’s play Art alongside US star Neil Patrick Harris. He had famously first delighted US audiences in 2012 when the play in which he starred in 2011 on the West End – One Man, Two Guvnors – transferred to Broadway. There was also a role voicing a character in last summer’s animated Smurfs movie.

Yet away from the limelight, life has been tricky – and even irritating – for Corden too.

This week it was revealed that he has ‘scrapped’ ambitious plans to turn a dilapidated Oxfordshire house into a lavish country retreat by selling the property for an undisclosed sum more than five years after buying it.

The actor originally bought the highly distinctive, art deco Templecombe House on the outskirts of Henley-On-Thames for £8million in 2020, with plans to demolish the property and build a six-bedroom mansion in its place.

While planning permission was granted in 2023 when Corden returned to the UK, the sprawling, horseshoe-shaped home has remained empty and abandoned. It has since become a popular target for local vandals.

And things aren’t much better for Corden at his London abode either, where he has fallen out with some of his neighbours over plans to extend and improve his £11.5million property in Belsize Park, north London.

This week it emerged that he has gone to war with Camden Council after he created a wheelie bin parking area in his front garden – only to be told to undo the work.

After successfully overriding objections to his plan for a spa and gym complex in his back garden, Corden paved over the gravel at the front of his house sometime last year.

Shrubs were torn out, seven square metres of flowerbed were wiped out, and about 18 square metres of his front drive were paved with concrete slabs to ‘increase the area... for [the] storage of bins’.

But he did so without getting permission first – a must because his house is situated in a conservation area.

His subsequent retrospective application was refused in November. Planning officers told him to rip up the slabs by the start of January or face formal enforcement action.

One source said: ‘It hasn’t exactly been much fun for James with either property, in fact it has been a nightmare for him. He had a lovely home in LA – he loved it, the sunshine, the notoriety, the adoration.

‘You have to wonder if he wished he had stayed there.’

As for the positives of moving back, he is still occasionally seen out with his friends Harry Styles and England footballer Declan Rice, while he is said to be thrilled to be nearer to his beloved West Ham’s London Stadium.

‘At least he can watch the Hammers now,’ says one pal.

Whether that makes up for the challenges remains to be seen.