With almost a billion YouTube views, James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke is a global success. But just how easy is it to persuade some of the most famous people on earth to hitch a lift? Stylist goes behind the scenes to find out

Words: Olivia Foster

It’s 12.30pm on 21 December 2015 and James Corden, home from LA for the Christmas holidays, is sitting at the wheel of his car on a rainy side street in London, chatting on his phone. As he hangs up, the passenger door swings opens and Adele casually slides into the front seat. Pleasantries are exchanged before the pair start singing along to the radio (which just so happens to be playing the singer’s smash hit Hello). And so begins 15 minutes of pure TV joy; we know – we’ve all seen it. Adele and Corden singing along to Spice Girls is the most viewed online clip in the history of late night television, with a staggering 126 million views and counting. This car journey is, of course, the now all too familiar formula for Carpool Karaoke – the wildly popular segment from Corden’s The Late Late Show in the US.

And it’s core franchise, Carpool Karaoke has helped The Late Late Show gain 1.5 billion YouTube views since Corden first sang along with a celeb while driving in early 2015. That’s more than the population of China (or India). It’s 178 times the number of people who watched The X Factor final in 2015. It’s more than 61 times the number of people who tuned in for the Royal Wedding. So what exactly is the winning formula that makes this humble late-night TV segment such a huge success, attracting the likes of Michelle Obama and Gwen Stefani, and what really happens behind the scenes when you’re trying to cram the world’s most famous celebrities into a 4x4?

Onto a winner

Perhaps the most surprising element of Carpool Karaoke’s success is that the show defies all the usual idioms of American popular culture – specifically with its English host, James Corden. “It’s impossible not to love James Corden,”says TV critic Ian Hyland. “It doesn’t matter if you recognise him or not, it’s clear within a couple of minutes that he’s naturally a very funny man and this puts audiences at ease.”It’s this no-fuss, authentic, funny-man personality that appeals to US audiences, who are used to far slicker TV hosts. Plus, the man can sing. Seriously sing, hitting notes that impress even the most Grammy-laden artists.

It also helps that the segment’s formula is incredibly simple. Host Corden needs to get to work in a hurry so he enlists the help of his celebrity friends, whose company enables him to drive in one of Los Angeles’ many carpool lanes to the CBS studios. As the ride starts, so does the singing – a back catalogue of the guest’s hits and a few all-time favourites, all woven together with casual, Corden-led chat.

“The show works as a kind of antidote to all the glamour and polish of American TV,” says Hyland. “The celebs can’t keep their hair perfect – if James opens the window, that’s their blow-dry ruined. But that makes them seem ‘real’. It’s mutually beneficial too. You know there isn’t a publicist in the car feeding them their lines, and they get a change from the carousel of round-table interviews and press junkets where they’re asked the same question again and again. Plus, you can see James’s obvious excitement at interviewing them. The celebrities know that they’re not going to be stitched up. They can trust him.”

Fasten your seatbelts: Stylist goes behind the scenes of Carpool Karaoke