James Corden can eat at Balthazar for free despite retracting apology – But there’s a catch

James Corden recently broke his silence after being referred to as a “tiny cretin of a man” by Keith McNally, the owner of New York City’s Balthazar restaurant.

He accused the “most abusive customer” of being obnoxious and even barred the “Late Late Show” host from entering the Manhattan hotspot.

McNally accused Corden of being cruel to his employees by yelling at them and demanding free food from the restaurant.

“I don’t often 86 a customer, so today I 86’d Corden. It did not make me laugh.”

However, the 44-year-old comic contacted the restauranteur a few hours later to “apologize profusely,” and the ban was lifted.

However, he appears to be retracting his apologies to McNally. According to Corden, he has done nothing wrong “on any level,” and asked:

“So why would I ever cancel this [interview]? I was there. I get it.”

Corden stated that he is “so zen” about the whole thing because he thinks it is “so stupid.”

He told the New York Times:

“I just think it’s beneath all of us. It’s beneath you. It’s certainly beneath your publication.”

At one point during the interview, the British celebrity turned to a diner who was dissatisfied with her meal at the Mark Restaurant, telling the interviewer that it “happens every day” and at “55,000 restaurants as we speak.”

But Keith McNally just told TMZafter finding out how James Corden wasn’t sorry:

“I have no wish to kick a man when he’s down, but I believe the best way for James Corden to retrieve some of the vast respect the public had for him before this incident is to own up to it and apologize to the young servers he abused.”

he told the newspaper that if Corden is mature enough, he:

“may eat free at Balthazar for the rest of the year.”

McNally then upped the ante, saying Corden could eat for free at Balthazar for the next ten years if he apologized.

“Was he joking?” McNally is perplexed after learning that Corden claimed he had done “anything wrong, on any level.”

“Or was he denying being abusive to my servers? Whatever Corden meant, his implication was clear: he didn’t do it.”

Although McNally admitted that he was unable to see the entire incident in which Corden mistreated the two waiters, a large portion of his restaurant floor crew did, and they had nothing to gain by lying.

The restaurant owner assumed Corden would simply accept his error.

According to McNally, if James Corden goes a step further and apologizes to the two servers he allegedly insulted, he will be able to eat at Balthazar for free for the next ten years.