James Corden is sharing details about how he ended up undergoing an unplanned eye surgery last month.
The “Late Late Show” host revealed on Wednesday’s episode of “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” that he suffered an eye injury while doing a play in 2012 that had eventually gotten better.
“And then, for some reason, about a year ago, it flared up again, this little sort of scratch on my eyeball, so I’ve been seeing doctors a lot,” he said, pointing to his left eye.
He then referenced the day he filmed a “Carpool Karaoke” segment with Justin Bieber, which drew attention online when a photo revealed Corden wasn't actually driving.
“Well, the reason I didn’t drive that day was because my eye was really hurting and we were worried it wouldn’t be safe.”
He had been keeping tabs on the eye when it got worse.
“A few weeks ago, three weeks ago or something like that, I woke up and I couldn’t open my eye, which meant I couldn’t open either of my eyes,” he said. "It just hurt."
He called his doctor, who said the matter needed to be addressed.
“The doctor I’ve been speaking with, he said, ‘Look, I think we have to sort this out. I think this has been happening too many times,’” Corden said.
The doctor didn’t even want to wait, with Corden saying he wiped the room down and performed surgery while the comedian remained awake.
“He took one look at my eye, and he said, ‘We’re gonna operate on it now,’" Corden recalled. “And I said, ‘But I’ve got a show at 5 p.m.’ And he said, ‘No, you don’t.’ He said, ‘You don’t have a show ‘til the earliest next week. You’ve got to do this right now.’
"So right there and then, which I was quite grateful ‘cause I didn’t have time to dread it, they just did it. And it’s the strangest thing ‘cause you’re awake, but it’s numb, so you can’t feel anything. But all the time I just kept going, ‘Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God.’ And that was it. So, hopefully, touch wood, it’s better, but we’ll see.”
When DeGeneres inquired further about him being awake during the procedure, Corden elaborated: “They clamp your eye open like ‘A Clockwork Orange,’ and then you can see what they’re doing, but you can’t feel it because it’s numb.”
Corden also discussed with DeGeneres the future of his popular “Carpool Karaoke” segment in light of the coronavirus. The answer? Well, Corden doesn’t exactly have one.
“I think it’ll be awhile before we’re singing in a car with anybody,” he said. “We can’t really think of a remote way to do it. It really does rely on two people being in close proximity, so, you know, that’s all right, that’s OK.”