James Corden was photographed in a tense altercation with airline staff over the weekend, but fellow passengers from their “nightmare” flight are defending the actor and explaining what happened.
The 45-year-old former The Late Late Show host has been accused of bad behavior several times in the past, with a restaurant owner calling him “the most abusive customer,” a director calling him “difficult and obnoxious,” and a popular singer calling him a “d–khead.”
When photos surfaced of James in the argument with airline staff, many people likely assumed he was misbehaving, but that’s not the case. He was actually advocating for his fellow passengers!
Keep reading to find out more…
James was flying from Faro, Portugal to London, England last week, but the plane had to return to Portugal after taking off and cruising below altitude for 45 minutes.
“Basically, what had happened was the flaps on the airplane wing which are supposed to go down when you are in the air won’t go down, which meant that they wouldn’t be able to raise them on landing,” a passenger named Vanessa told Metro.
The plane was held on the tarmac in Portugal for three hours before the plane was deemed unsafe to fly and all passengers were rescheduled for a flight the next day. During those three hours, James actually got out of his seat to entertain the other passengers and pose for selfies.
“He walked up and down the aisles talking to people, and let everybody take a selfie with him,” Vanessa said. “He was just really nice, he would have been well within his rights to sit and sulk in his seat like the rest of us would be doing but he didn’t.”
The altercation with airline staff happened after the flight when passengers were waiting in line to get rebooked. Vanessa revealed to Metro that only “club flyers or gold flyers” were offered free hotel rooms for the night while other travelers were left to fend for themselves. James decided that was unacceptable and advocated for all flyers to receive hotel rooms.
“James was a club flyer and he stood there, and was like, ‘What about all these people who’ve got all these kids with them?’ like saying that’s not acceptable. It’s not right,” she said.
James showed up the next day for the rescheduled flight and “stood in the same queue as everybody else, doing the same things as everybody else did.”