Still not over it? Andy Cohen has further explained his controversial comments after alleging that The Late Late Show With James Corden had copied his Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen set.
“The truth is, all talk shows kind of feed off each other, and I think Watch What Happens Live owes a great deal to The Graham Norton Show, “ Cohen, 54, told The New Yorker in an interview published on Sunday, February 19, referring to the British chat show hosted by Graham Norton. “I think, in my early years of Watch What Happens Live, I was much more prone to jealousy and insecurity, and I had a different attitude about it than I do now.”
He continued: “I feel like, now, if I could say anything to myself in the early days of Watch What Happens Live, I’d be, like, ‘Dude, take a breath. Stay in your lane. Everything’s fine.’ And so I think that I just feel grateful to be doing it, which, again, sounds very Scientology or whatever. But, like, I am [grateful].”
The Missouri native has hosted his eponymous Bravo talk show since July 2009, nearly six years before Corden’s CBS program debuted. (The England native, 44, took over The Late Late Show from Craig Ferguson.)
“I’m not a comedian [and] I think [WWHL is] a different type of talk show,” Cohen said during a December 2022 episode of the “Table for Two With Bruce Bozzi” podcast. “I think there has been a traditional idea of what a late-night talk show is. I would argue that Watch What Happens Live redefined what the late-night talk show is. [We had] the first bar on late-night, [and then] James Corden got a bar. James Corden kind of wound up [copying our set]. It is what it is.”
He added at the time: “Frankly, I just feel so grateful now, and I’m not just blowing smoke, [and] I’m so glad we’re still going. “It’s like, ‘Great, copy my set. Go with God.’”
Cohen’s WWHL “Clubhouse” features a set of three chairs — for the Glitter Every Day author and two celebrity guests — and a bar. Corden’s set features a velvet coach for the guests, positioned beside his desk, and its own bar area, which Cohen alleged had been “ripped off” from WWHL.
“14 years into this, I’m so glad it’s still going and we can still do this. So I can’t be always looking around, paranoid,” the Real Housewives producer said in Sunday’s profile. “But it did annoy me when I saw a picture of James Corden’s set because it looked like they did [my] set but actually made it look much better and spent millions of dollars on it.”
The Cats actor, who never publicly addressed the stage comparisons, is set to conclude his The Late Late Show later this year.
“It’s been it’s a really hard decision to leave because I’m so immensely proud of the show. I’m thrilled to be extending [for a year],” Corden told Deadline in April 2022, revealing he will tape his final episode in summer 2023. “I always thought I’d do it for five years and then leave and then I stayed on. I’ve really been thinking about it for a long time, thinking whether there might be one more adventure.”
