Entertainment

This Photo Of James Corden Kissing Sean Spicer At The Emmys Has Twitter Outraged

by Ani Bundel
CBS

Last night, Steven Colbert's politics-heavy opening Emmys monologue was one of the funniest in recent memory. The man pulled no punches, including calling out the room for patting itself on the back for "diversity," which in reality, was extremely paltry. But the real shocker was when Sean Spicer, lately of the White House Press Briefing Room, rolled out on the SNL lectern and announced this was the biggest Emmys audience ever. The outrage on Twitter only swelled as, during the after parties, celebrities hobnobbed with him, including a photo of James Corden kissing Sean Spicer that surfaced this morning.

Twitter wasn't happy that Spicer was invited in the first place. If there was a moment when Colbert lost the audience, it was when Spicer rolled out, doing a comedic take on the lies he spread in the name of Trump for the first six months of the administration. Perhaps Colbert was trying to make a deeper point, that the Emmys audience are all secretly like Trump, and want these soothing lies of enormous audiences told to them as well. (This is a man known for making fun of an audience to their face.)

But if that was the case, it didn't read in the slightest. Instead, to those at home, it looked like Hollywood was accepting and normalizing something that should not be. Namely, Trump insisting his minions lie to the public's face in a pathetic attempt to put out state-TV propaganda.

But the real outrage came after the show when those in the audience began treating Spicer like he was a celebrity and mobbed to get a selfie with him.

But nothing quite prepared us for this photo, posted on the Variety Instagram:

That is, as we know, James Corden, the UK born host of the Late Late Show. Before he came over here, he was in the hit comedy skit show Gavin & Stacey, which was shown over here on BBC America.

Part of Corden's success in translating his comedy coming over here is a massive toning down of his biting wit, which he would deliver with aplomb in the UK. While Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers go after Trump on a nightly basis, Corden has benefited from Fallon's reputation as a hair-ruffler and political neophyte, by coming in and doing the Fallon act one better. His biggest sketch is as apolitical as they come: "Carpool Karaoke" which brings famous people around to make fools of themselves singing along to modern and classic pop tunes on the car radio while driving around New York City.

In short, this is not a man who is known for talking tough political stances. If anything, his politics mostly begins and ends with heartfelt messages to those back at home whenever there's another terrorist attack on UK soil. Not exactly controversial, more homesick.

This may be about to change in a major way.

If this wasn't bad enough, someone came up with a catchy nickname that's spreading like wildfire.

Some went the meme route:

Others are on the same wavelength as I am, that Corden has benefited more from Fallon's mistake than his own work, and the scales have now been balanced.

The irony is, this has been Corden's big moment to break back into the UK now that he's been such a huge stateside hit. The show, #LateLateLondon, was basically just the Late Late Show, but done for the UK, and aired on Sky1 back in June. Whether or not there will be another series of specials if his popularity nosedives over here is another matter.

Of course, some point out that this is hypocritical. Hollywood is normalizing terrible people all the time...

James Corden's rep has not put out a statement at this time, but we have a feeling that Corden will be looking to address it himself this evening when the Late Late Show tapes at dinner time. if his monologue leaks ahead of time, we'll update.