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James Corden booking the guys of One Direction on his May 14Late Late Show wasn’t due to circumstance or their being the hottest groupright now. It came largely in part thanks to Louis Tomlinson’s mother! “We werevery lucky in that I’ve known, I first met Louis, Louis’s mom was a chaperone ona TV show that I did in 2002,” he explained during a CBS Summer Press Day inWest Hollywood. “She used to chaperone a couple of the younger kids on theshow, and Louis would hang around on the set a little bit.”
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After the boys moved to London and made it big with X Factor,his concerned mother asked James to look out for the boys. “She then wrote mean email and said, ‘I don’t know if you really remember my son, but he’s inthis band and he’s in London on his own,” he continued. “Is there any way thatyou could look out for him?’ I said “of course. Absolutely.’ So they would comearound a couple of times and we would play PlayStation games and eat pizza, andmy wife would feel like she was babysitting us.”
Because of this close, personal connection, the group feltcomfortable coming on his show and discussing the most troubling moment in theband’s history… and getting whacked with a few giant, rubber balls. The boys of 1Dwere hardly James’ only musical guests as he has done car karaoke with twolegendary singers: Jennifer Hudson and Mariah Carey. James told Hello! hiswishlist for whom he would like to get in the car to belt out a tune: “RodStewart. Prince. Justin Bieber. Springsteen.”
Photo: Sonja Flemming/CBS
One dream guest that won’t be making it on the Late LateShow is David Letterman. “I sent him an email when we started the showasking if we could do an interview with him in his theater,” James shared. “Hesent back the kindest email and he said ‘I hope you don’t mind. I’m not goingto do the interview. I think that people are sick of hearing from me.’”
While James couldn’t disagree more to Dave’s sentiment, he alsocredits The Late Show host for his start, even if it was just via the TV. WhenJames was living in New York City performing on Broadway in The History Boys,he became extremely homesick wishing he could just phone his parents and sisterand stumbled upon the late night shows.
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“I didn’t know about this phenomenon,” the Brit said. “This trope oflate night television that airs at midnight and 11:30 every night… I would putmy TV on and there was this guy on, and I think I found a connection with thisguy in a way that so many others have and in a much deeper sense over the last30 years where it suddenly became clear what the power of late night hosts isand are.”
Thanks to that ‘friendship’ through the television, Jamesstarted to get over missing his family. He shared: “And suddenly that last hourof the day stopped being a time where I wished that I could ring my parents,but became a time where I could really look forward to what this guy was goingto do tonight or what he was going to say tonight or how it was going to be andhe was talking to me, directly to me, in bed.”
Now, it is James’ turn to be that for some young20-somethings.