James Corden Says ‘No One Believes’ He Wasn’t Fired From ‘Late Late Show’

After leaving The Late Late Show desk behind last spring, James Corden said he’s having a hard time convincing people not to feel sorry for him.

Corden, 45, appeared on the Tuesday, April 2, episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, where he discussed his life back home in the U.K. and the fact that “no one believes that I wasn’t fired.”

“I’ll be in a pub or something and people will be like, ‘So why’d you come back?’ and I’ll be like, ‘Oh, ’cause [11-year-old son] Max has finished sixth grade and we really wanted him to have a relationship with his grandparents,’” Corden told host Jimmy Kimmel. “And people will honestly be like, ‘You don’t have to give me that bulls–t. It’s fine, mate. If you got fired, you got fired.’”

Corden said he can understand some of the confusion because, after all, “nobody thinks you would ever leave what is, let’s be honest, a cushy existence.”

When Kimmel, 56, told Corden he should look into getting an official letter from CBS saying he made the decision to leave the late-night show himself, Corden said it wouldn’t do any good.

“I would, except they don’t know what CBS is,” Corden said of his skeptics in the U.K. “So they’ll go, ‘Well, that’s not a real thing.’ And then I have to tell them what the show was, and they’ll go, ‘Hang on, it was on at 12:30 at night. That’s a ridiculous time to put a TV show on.’”

Corden announced his decision to leave The Late Late Show after seven years in April 2022.

“This will be my last year hosting the show,” Corden said in his monologue at the time. “When I started this journey, it was always going to be just that. It was going to be a journey, an adventure. I never saw it as my final destination, you know? And I never want this show to overstay its welcome in any way. I always want to love making it. And I really think in a year from now that will be a good time to move on and see what else might be out there.”

Calling it the “hardest decision” he ever made, Corden remained as host for another calendar year before officially saying goodbye in April 2023.

“I’m so proud of the show,” Corden said during his final send-off. “I’m so proud of what we’ve done and it absolutely feels like the right time to say, ‘I think we did everything we came to do.’”