James Corden addressed the situation after fans noticed distinct similarities between the two jokes (Picture: CBS/Getty)

James Corden has spoken out after ‘inadvertently’ telling a Ricky Gervais joke on the Late Late Show.

During one clip from the show, the presenter discusses Elon Musk taking over Twitter, after buying the social media platform in a $44billion (£38.3bn) deal.

However, fans noticed the monologue was very similar to one of Ricky’s routines from his show Humanity, with the Afterlife star even referencing it in a now-deleted tweet.

James said on his show: ‘That’s what I think when you see Elon Musk talk about Twitter, he says, “well it’s the town square”, but it isn’t.

‘Because if someone puts up a poster in a town square that says guitar lessons available, you don’t get people in the town square saying, ”I don’t want to play the guitar! I want to play the piano, you piece of s***!” 

‘Well that sign wasn’t for you, it was for somebody else, you don’t have to get mad about all of it.’

The Office creator had captioned the now removed clip: ‘The bit about the town square advert for guitar lessons is brilliant’, in reference to his own joke, which is almost identical to the one James relayed earlier this week.

Speaking out on the Late Late Show Twitter account, James wrote: ‘Inadvertently told a brilliant Ricky Gervais joke on the show last night, obviously not knowing it came from him. It’s brilliant, because it’s a Ricky Gervais joke. You can watch all Ricky’s excellent specials on Netflix. J x’.

Ricky seems to have forgiven James, retweeting the message.

He had previously said to a fan: ‘I reckon one of the writers ‘came up with it’ for him. I doubt he would knowingly just copy such a famous stand up routine word for word like that.’

He went on to admit that he deleted his original tweet because he ‘started to feel sorry’ for James.

It comes shortly after James apologised for a comment he made in a restaurant in New York, which led to him being banned by the eatery.

James called the restaurant to apologise, and later spoke out on his show, with the restaurant owner lifting the ban shortly after he spoke to James.

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Fans noticed distinct similarities between the routines.