James Corden will be a “blubbering mess” when his final “The Late Late Show with James Corden” airs, but admitted it would’ve been the “wrong reason” to stay for the money. The 44-year-old star is said to have turned down a deal to double his £7 million salary to remain on the program, and James has now admitted it was a “lovely offer.”
The last-ever episode of his talk show will air in the U.S. on Thursday, April 27 – and the U.K. on Friday, April 28 – and James feels “very strange” that his time on the show is coming to an end after eight years.
He told The Sun newspaper, “It was a lovely offer from my boss but staying for the money would be the wrong reason to do it. You have got to keep changing stuff up. You have to keep going and exploring and finding more stuff about yourself in the journey of it all. Right now, there are a lot of unknowns. It just feels very strange – knowing everything is going to change but trying to hang on to the fact that change is fundamentally a good thing. I really hope I haven’t taken any of the last eight years for granted – I always knew it would end at some point.”
James admitted he will try to “keep it together” during the finale, but he ultimately has to focus on “having a little bit of silence” when “The Late Late Show” ends and he returns home to the U.K. with his wife Julia Carey and their three children, Max, 12, Carey, eight, and five-year-old Charlotte.
He said, “I think I have to spend a little bit of time letting this all go. It has been a noisy eight years, and right now I am going to try and focus on having a little bit of silence. The biggest thing for me at the moment is overseeing the move. We have to be there for our kids. I can’t be travelling and leaving them. I think there will be a sense of real displacement for them and I am very conscious of that, and of making the environment as good as possible for them. But yes, I do hope I have got another story in me to tell.”
James admits the “most L.A. thing” he will bring back to the U.K. is his new-found love of meditation. He added, “I try and do 20 minutes of silence and breathing. I whole-heartedly recommend it.”
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