James Buckley was hilariously mistaken for a drug smuggler after attempting to bring OXO gravy cubes into the United States.
The 37-year-old actor, best known for playing Jay Cartwright in The Inbetweeners, found himself in hot water with US airport officials after they discovered several gravy cubes wrapped in tin foil inside his suitcase. The packaging raised suspicions, with security initially believing the cubes were illegal substances.
Speaking on The Buckleys podcast with his wife Clair, James recalled the incident, explaining that the cubes were actually for Clair’s Auntie Dora, who lives in the US. “Anytime I go to America now, I have to open my suitcase and show them everything — not because I was smuggling drugs or anything cool like that. No, it was because I tried to get some OXO cubes into the country,” he said.
He explained that he had agreed to bring over some OXO and Bisto, unaware that bringing meat-based products like beef extract into the US is a customs violation. “To be fair, OXO cubes are tiny little powder cubes wrapped up in tin foil, and they were like, ‘What is that?’ I said, ‘Oh, it’s gravy.’ And they took them from me.”
Despite confirming the cubes were harmless, airport authorities confiscated them due to strict import rules on meat and vegetable products. “I wasn’t allowed to take them because it’s beef extract. So now, every time I travel to the US, I get flagged immediately. I can’t just walk through.”
Trying to outsmart the system during a family trip to Florida, James placed all the luggage under Clair’s name. “I put all the suitcases under you,” he admitted, to which Clair laughed, “Don’t you remember the last time when we went to Florida?”
James and Clair, who share two sons — Harrison, 13, and Jude, 11 — now know better than to bring gravy across the Atlantic. But for James, the memory of nearly becoming the world’s least dangerous “drug smuggler” is one he won’t forget anytime soon.
