Entertainment

Legend, Keys among Carpool Karaoke spin-off stars

Legend, Keys among Carpool Karaoke spin-off stars
Legend, Keys among Carpool Karaoke spin-off stars Legend, Keys among Carpool Karaoke spin-off stars

Alicia Keys and John Legend are among the stars who will host the spin-off of James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke.

The segment from James’s talk show is getting its own series.

James Corden (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

Celebrity pairs including Alicia and John, Ariana Grande and Seth MacFarlane, and Blake Shelton and Chelsea Handler will be featured on the 16-episode series to be released weekly on Apple Music.

James, who will appear with Will Smith on one episode, said he was proud The Late Late Show has created a segment that works so well it will stand on its own.

“I’m incredibly proud we have a late night talk show that 18 months ago a majority of the room were going, ‘Who the hell is this guy?’” James told a meeting of the Television Critics Association.

John Legend (Ian West/PA)

The British star was a US TV newcomer when he took over as host of CBS’ Late Late Show in 2015, but he’d already won a 2012 Tony Award for Broadway’s One Man, Two Guvnors.

His karaoke segments, in which James drives while a pop star passenger joins him in song, has become a viral sensation.

Does he have advice to those who will take the wheel for the new series?

“This is only a waste of time if you don’t enjoy it,” he said. “That enjoyment, that joy, that sort of unbridled freedom of singing in a car, is the glue that holds it all together.”

First Lady Michelle Obama featured on James’ Carpool Karaoke (The Late, Late Show/PA)

Driving and singing aren’t an issue, he said. The rule is head in a straight line.

“I’d rather do it here than in London. That’s much harder,” he said.