James Corden Reveals How Louis Tomlinson's Mom Helped Introduce Him to Friend Harry Styles

getty (3) Louis Tomlinson, Harry Styles, James Corden

James Corden and Harry Styles have a well-documented friendship, but they actually have another member of One Direction to thank for it.

Corden, 44, revealed during the New Yorker Festival on Sunday that it was Louis Tomlinson's late mother who helped introduce the Late Late Show host to the British boy band back in 2010.

Corden told staff writer Rachel Syme that he and Johannah Deakin knew of each other because she'd once served as a chaperone on one of his TV shows — and when her son, Tomlinson, was filming The X Factor, she asked if Corden could look after the then-18-year-old. Deakin died of leukemia in 2016.

"[She] wrote me an email one night saying, 'My son's down in London. I don't know if you remember me. You met him years ago. We're slightly worried that he's in London on his own. Would you reach out to him?'" Corden recalled. "And I said, 'Sure.'"

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The comedian said he did as she asked, and through Tomlinson, got to know Styles and the rest of the band, which included Niall Horan, Liam Payne and Zayn Malik.

"Various members of that band would come around to our house in North London and we'd eat pizza and play PlayStation and my wife [Julia] would feel like she was babysitting," he said. "And then from then on, our friendship has grown, and I love him very, very much. I'm very proud of him and protective of him, always."

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In the years since, Corden and Styles, 28, have remained close, and the "Late Night Talking" singer is a frequent Late Late Show guest. In 2017, Styles even took over hosting duties after Corden's wife went into labor.

Shortly after the release of Styles' third album Harry's House in May, he and Corden teamed up for a segment in which they crashed a Brooklyn apartment and made a music video for "Daylight" with a $300 budget.

"They had no idea," Corden told Syme of the girls who lived in the apartment. "They certainly had no idea that it was going to be me. They certainly had no idea that Harry was going to be there."