Who Is James Corden's Dream Guest For Carpool Karaoke?

Now and then, James Corden's "The Late Late Show" does indeed break the internet. Sometimes, it's because of something a celebrity revealed in the segment "Spill Your Guts or Fill Your Guts." Other times, it's because a "Crosswalk the Musical" flash mob had gotten far too interesting. But more often than not, it's because a "Carpool Karaoke" bit had gone viral.

Corden's popularity in the late-night space is largely a result of the segment, which features famous musical guests to sing along to their popular songs with the host as they navigate Los Angeles, California. "We want to make a show which outperforms its time slot in a way," the host told People of how they came up with the concept. "We want to make a show that has the widest reach and the biggest grasp." And that they did. Corden and his team made a seemingly mundane activity seem wildly fascinating. Everyone sings in the car, but when he does it, the world's greatest stars ride shotgun. The likes of Adele, Bruno Mars, BTS, Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Stevie Wonder, Mariah Carey, and Paul McCartney had all gotten to sing their hearts out with Corden.

"Carpool Karaoke" is so loved that it has now amassed hundreds of millions of views. But even if Corden had managed to book the world's biggest stars, he has yet to invite his ultimate guest to be his karaoke buddy.

James Corden isn't one to pick favorites, but if you ask him which "Carpool Karaoke" guest he had the best time with, he only has one answer: Bruno Mars. "I mean, it's a bit like picking your children, you know what I mean?" he told ET. "But in terms of the one I've enjoyed doing the most, I think it was probably Bruno. I got a bit depressed afterwards ... Because I'd been looking forward to it for so long and I'm such a fan. When we were done, I was like, 'Oh. I'm not gonna get to do that again."

Now even though it's been six years since the inception of the segment, Corden has yet to book his dream guests. "There are so many... There's loads," he shared with E! News. "Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Kendrick Lamar, Nicki Minaj, you know, there's so many."

It doesn't end with musical guests, of course! When Corden made a guest appearance on "The Daily Show with Trevor Noah", the two brainstormed for the ultimate dream guest. "The next step you're doing, and that's you and the Pope in the Pope Mobile," Noah quipped. Corden seemed excited about the idea, too. "Oh man, that would be ... I would absolutely love it, absolutely ... I would love nothing more than to do [Carpool Karaoke] with the Pope."

It may seem hard to believe, but James Corden and his team had a tough time convincing celebrities, let alone superstars, to participate in "Carpool Karaoke."

"We couldn't get anybody," Corden revealed to Trevor Noah in 2019. "I really always believed in the idea. I always thought that this would be a good idea... Everybody think of a living recording artist," Corden asked the audience. "They said no." That all changed when Mariah Carey had agreed to go on to be the first "Carpool Karaoke" guest, but even that was a stroke of luck. "She was about to put some new dates on in Vegas. I showed her a clip of me doing [the segment] with George Michael that I've done at home for Comic Relief," Corden recalled. Mariah Carey was like, 'If it's good enough for George, it's good enough for me.' And that was it.

"Nobody thought it would become the thing it would become," he added. "It's crazy." Now, the segment is a cornerstone of YouTube!