James Corden, host of CBS’s Late Late Show, is promising to update one of his TV show bits after activists claimed that the segment is grounded in racism.
Calling it “Spill Your Guts,” James Corden has featured the bit for several seasons where guests are given the choice to answer a personal question or have to eat something “gross.”
Corden, though, has taken criticism over his choice of “gross” foods. Many of them have tended to be Asan cuisine, and a Change.org petition is taking him to task over the bit, according to Deadline.
A recent TikTok video went viral this month featuring clips of Corden’s choice of “gross” foods, including balut (boiled fertilized egg dish), pídàn (thousand-year-old egg) and xuě dòufǔ (pig blood).
Watch below:
In one clip, Corden said the Asian foods were “horrific.”
Kim Saira, the TikTok videographer who also started the petition, slammed Corden, saying that his decision to use Asian foods as punishment is “cringe.”
“In the wake of the constant Asian hate crimes that have continuously been occurring, not only is this segment incredibly culturally offensive and insensitive, but it also encourages anti-Asian racism. So many Asian Americans are consistently bullied and mocked for their native foods, and this segment amplifies and encourages it,” the petition states.
Corden responded to the criticism on Howard Stern’s show. He admitted that he and his producers had seen the petition.
“We heard that story, and the next time we do that bit we absolutely won’t involve or use any of those foods,” Corden told Stern. “As you said at the start, our show is a show about joy and light and love, we don’t want to make a show to upset anybody.”
“It’s not for us to determine [why] somebody’s upset or hurt about something. That’s not for us to decide. All we can do is go: Alright, we get it. We hear you. We won’t do that,” he continued.
The British-born host added that in the future the food would be more junk food oriented, the kind that is fattening or would mess up a diet.
“In the same way that when we played it with Anna Wintour, we gave her a pizza covered in cheeseburgers,” the host said.
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