He’s a popular English actor, comedian, and television host who has had a hugely successful career on US television, but James Corden’s wife Julia Carey has had an impressive career in show business herself and a famous actor introduced them.
After eight years, Corden announced he was leaving The Late Late Show in April 2022 and that his final show would be in the spring of 2023. It’s since been revealed that the reason for his departure after such a tenure was that he wanted to spend more time with his wife and their three children. “I will be a mess on that last show. I will cry my eyes out,” he said during an episode of The Drew Barrymore Show. “But I will know, at my core, that the best thing for me and the best thing for us as a family is to put down some roots in London. … And it feels absolutely right in every single way.” The story of how the famous couple came to be is really quite cute, so here’s everything we know about James Corden’s wife, whom he affectionately calls “Jules”.
Who is James Corden’s wife Julia Carey?
James Corden’s wife Julia Carey started out her own career as an actor but moved into show business roles behind the camera as a producer. They were introduced in 2009 through actor Dominic Cooper, with whom Corden had roomed with in 2004. It was at a Save The Children charity event that Cooper introduced Corden to Carey.
James Corden and Julia Carey in 2015. Photo by Crowder/Legge/GC Images
“I said, ‘I’m really enjoying this sort of thing—like, cooking dinner, falling asleep, not really drinking,’ ” Corden recalled to People about the night Cooper encouraged his mate to go along to the event. “And he said, ‘Come on, let’s go, it’ll be fun.’ Thank God, he persuaded me.” When Cooper introduced the two, Corden remembered it was love at first sight. “I said, ‘Hi, Jules. You might be the most beautiful woman in the world,’ ” he says. “She said, ‘Well, thank you very much. That sounds like something you say a lot.’ And I said, ‘I’ve never said it before in my life.’ That was it. That was it, really. I was in. And by an absolute miracle, so was she.”
Corden said he remembered he and Carey spent the night sitting in the corner getting to know each other. “We sat and we very jokingly kind of planned the rest of our lives together, an hour and a half after we met,” he revealed. “As a joke! We were just talking. And we were both talking about how much we felt like we were now past the notion of going out every night — that we had hit the age where the prospect of a quiet night in was glorious.” “I remember saying to her, ‘Well, what about on Friday we could do nothing together? You could come over and we could just do nothing. And then maybe we could do nothing on the Saturday, and we could do nothing on the Sunday. And if our evenings are enough of nothing, then maybe this would become something,’ ” he says. “And she said, ‘That sounds like a fun idea.’ ”
The couple got engaged in 2010, and they tied the knot in a lavish ceremony in 2012, with The Mirror reporting the wedding cost more than $300,000 and was attended by more than 200 guests including several of Corden’s celebrity friends like David Beckham, Lara Stone, and Michael McIntyre. At the time, a source said: “James has been so over-excited about the wedding and wanted to make sure it was everything they imagined. It was just close friends and family and a very special day for them both.”
The couple have three children together: son Max, born in March 2011, and daughters Carey, born October 2014, and Charlotte, born in December 2017. Cooper, who set the couple up and who starred with Corden in The History Boys, is godfather to Max.
In an interview with Baby, Corden described how much becoming a parent had changed his life for the better. “Fatherhood, in one sense, is a massive transformation in your life. But in another, it doesn’t feel that different. You’re the same person, but there’s a completeness to it all. The truth is I’ve loved every single minute of being a dad. It’s hard, of course, but all I have to do is look at my kids’ faces and it’s worthwhile. I feel incredibly blessed.”
As mentioned, Corden’s family played a big part in his wanting to leave The Late Late Show, and a pivotal moment was during a discussion with his eldest, Max. “One day I was filming on a Sunday and I came downstairs, it was about 6 a.m. and my son, who was 10 at the time, was sat on the stairs and he said, ‘Are you working today?’ and I said, ‘I am,’ and he said, ‘I thought, well it’s Sunday,’ and I said, ‘I know, buddy, but this schedule’s just all over the place. We just got to get it done because we only have a tiny amount of time before we have to go back and do the show,’ and his face just kind of dropped,” Corden recalled on an episode of The Drew Barrymore Show in 2023. “I got in the car and I called my wife Jules and I said, ‘I’ve realized, best case scenario, we have six more summers where Max even remotely wants to be around us and I cannot waste another one.’”
Corden said “his face just kind of dropped. … I got in the car and I called my wife Jules and I said, ‘I’ve realized, the best-case scenario we have six more summers where Max is like, even remotely wants to be around us and I cannot waste another one,’ ” he added. In an earlier interview, in June 2022, he told Extra: “My kids are getting older, their grandparents are getting older, and it perhaps just felt like the right time for us as a family to be freer in our decisions,” Corden explained.
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