The root of these rumors regarding James Corden’s difficult and nasty demeanor can be at least partially traced to Reddit itself, and the time he did a Reddit AMA thread in 2019. The top-voted post by u/wutang_tacos discusses a time the poster saw Corden behaving terribly in public. “Hey James. You won’t remember me but me and my friends sat at a table next to you and Harry Styles + some others in Manchurian Legends in London’s Chinatown about 6 years ago,” the Redditor wrote. “We didn’t bother you but you were a massively entitled c*** who yelled and treated the waitstaff like s*** and when one of my party politely suggested you calm down, you got really aggressive and threatening (in a chubby way. Like a boozy panda.) So my question is this; why did Harry seem so cool, while you were such a massive throbbing bellend?”

Other posters asked Corden how the YouTube algorithm could stop recommending his videos, if “The Late Late Show” could bring back his predecessor Craig Ferguson, and whether or not he’s an “a**hole” in real life. (At least one person posted an unconfirmed story said to be about the comedian not helping his wife with their crying baby on a plane.) Corden didn’t respond, but to say his AMA went poorly is a huge understatement. That cemented his bad reputation in Hollywood, but the worst was yet to come.