The Real Reason We Don't Hear From Jamie Foxx Anymore

Jamie Foxx is one of Hollywood's biggest and most celebrated stars. His choices in the entertainment industry have been so varied that it's almost maddening how successful he's been in basically everything he's tried. 

Born Eric Bishop, the man burst into the public consciousness as a stand-up comedian and sketch performer on Fox's In Living Color, but he's also a talented dramatic performer, winning a best actor Oscar for his portrayal of R&B legend Ray Charles in Ray in 2005. That same year, he also received a best supporting actor nomination for Collateral. When not starring in everything from action movies (White House Down) to Quentin Tarantino flicks (Django Unchained) to family films (Annie), Foxx has enjoyed a successful music career with hit singles like "Blame It" and multiple collaborations with Kanye West. 

But in recent years, this A-lister has disappeared from Hollywood's radar. Why? True to form, he's got his hands full with lots of endeavors. Check it out.

Although he won both a Golden Globe and an Academy Award for his role as Ray Charles in the biopic Ray (2004), Foxx has noticeably disappeared from the silver screen in recent years. A closer look at his IMDb resume reveals that Foxx shortly stopped making movies in 2014.  The Texas native starred in a whopping four movies that year alone, including Rio 2, The Amazing Spiderman 2, Horrible Bosses 2, and the kid-movie blunder and ratings disaster Annie that year alone.

Annie, which co-starred Cameron Diaz and Quvenzhane Wallis, was perhaps the film that sent the actor into hiding. It opened in December 2014 to terrible reviews. For what it's worth, the original film was a tough act to follow, and musicals aren't always a great fit for the box office. On the financial front, Box Office Mojo reported that the remake about the little orphan was built on a $65 million budget, but only earned $85 million in theaters. Despite opening up during the height of awards season, the film failed to capture much critical acclaim. The Golden Globes nominated Wallis for her work and nominated singer Sia for best original song for "Opportunity," but Foxx's role as Will Stacks — the new Lt. Gen. Sir Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks — garnered little fanfare.

Foxx isn't the type of man to kiss and tell. He's been very quiet over the years when it comes to matters of the heart, but, while you may not have heard it from his mouth, he's been romantically linked to actress Katie Holmes for years. 

The pair reportedly became more than friends in 2013, reported E! News. They were spotted together at the fourth annual Apollo in the Hamptons charity event, where they danced the night away, but they have rarely been photographed together since. Foxx has even denied dating Holmes on a number of occasions. "Oh come on, you guys have been trying to get that to stick for three years," he quipped to E! News in 2015, insisting they were "just friends." 

However, subtle details have emerged that suggest their love is the real deal. The Real Housewives of Atlanta star Claudia Jordan slipped up and seemed to confirm a relationship between Holmes and her friend, Foxx, before backpedaling and claiming she "misspoke," reported Entertainment Tonight.

There could be an interesting reason why Foxx refuses to let the public dig into his private life. "I like to stay quiet, you know, with anyone that I'm dating; that I'm really, really dating," he told Entertainment Tonight. "If there's somebody that you're dating, the worst thing you can do is let that [points at camera] touch you. Because once that camera touches you ... You have to make sure it's real. We don't take time do that anymore."

At one point, Holmes and Foxx sparked engagement and marriage rumors after they were photographed separately wearing bands on their ring fingers. There were even reports that the pair spent a romantic holiday together in November 2016 to celebrate Holmes' birthday, reported Us Weekly. Only time will tell if these two alleged lovebirds will ever come out of hiding.

Jamie Foxx made headlines in January 2017, when he reportedly threw down at Los Angeles eatery Catch.

According to TMZ, Foxx and his pals were dining when they were approached by another patron who said their group was too loud. A witness shared that the man told Foxx and his crew, "You don't want to mess with me. I'm from New York." Then someone from Foxx's camp fired back, "F**k you, I'm from Oakland!" Chaos ensued. Some onlookers said the New Yorker attacked Foxx; others claim Foxx put the mouthy man in a chokehold. Whatever the case, both parties were kicked out.

Foxx, ever the comedian, addressed the controversy with an Instagram video days later. In the clip (via Us Weekly), Foxx holds a towel over one eye. "I know you all heard about this sh*t, man ... All I was trying to do, man, was keep my eye on things," he says, dropping the towel to reveal a crossed eye. "I'm just f**king with y'all, man," he says. "Everybody's good. 2017. We don't want no violence. We don't want to get hurt." 

While that may be funny, it's still a bad look for a celeb to get mixed up in such behavior.

Like anyone, Jamie Foxx can suffer from a bad case of foot-in-mouth disease. Such was the case in early 2016 as the #OscarsSoWhite diversity discussion began to take shape. Foxx, who won his Academy Award in 2005, had little to say on the matter, but what he did say ignited controversy. 

"All these Oscar talks, I don't even trip about that," he joked at the American Black Film Festival Awards (via Us Weekly). "I mean, what's the big deal? I was sitting at home with my Oscar, like 'What's all the hubbub?'" The comment reeked of privilege, but it got worse: "My friend said, 'Are you mad?' 'Um, kind of, but not really,'" Foxx said. "I started calling Denzel [Washington], and we just Instagrammed our Oscars together." Foxx concluded by saying that acting is about the art, not the awards. 

While Foxx is certainly entitled to his own opinion, many felt his remarks were insensitive, considering only a handful of minorities, of any shade, have even earned nominations, much less captured Oscar gold. Foxx never apologized for his comments, but it's likely he lost a few friends in the matter — especially among those vocalizing their disgust for the lack of diversity.

If Foxx ever wants to play an angel in a movie, it seems he's a shoo-in for the part, based on his heroic real-life actions in January 2016.

The actor was reportedly at his Hidden Valley, Calif. home when he heard a car wreck. Foxx rushed to the accident scene to discover an overturned truck engulfed in flames with the driver trapped inside. According to a Facebook post by Ventura County officials (via Us Weekly), it was Foxx who dialed 911 and was "able to reach into the vehicle, grab the person, and drag them away to safety" with assistance from an off-duty EMT worker.

"As I'm getting him out, I said, 'You've got to help me get you out because I don't want to have to leave you,'" the actor later told CBS Los Angeles (via CNN). "I said, 'You've angels around you.'" He added, "I don't look at it as heroic. I just look at it as ... you just had to do something. It all worked out."

Perhaps Foxx's next role should be a revival of Touched by an Angel.

In May 2015, Foxx put his Grammy-winning voice to good use by performing the national anthem at the Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight. His vocals earned applause, but it didn't sit well with some viewers at home. Foxx was slammed for being too extra with the patriotic classic.

Days later, after the criticism died down a bit, Foxx told Entertainment Tonight his off performance was due to a number of factors — mainly technical issues. "We crafted this great thing with the organ and everything," he said. "That night [my in-ear] pack falls off just before I'm supposed to sing." He claims the immediate reaction was positive, saying, "I ... saw Denzel Washington [and] he was like, 'That was amazing.' Jim Gray was like, 'You nailed it, it was the best.' Then when we looked on the Internet or somebody told me about the Internet [and] they said, 'Oh people are really clowning you.'"

"I didn't think I committed a sin against America," Foxx said. "I wanted that to be the best moment and, unfortunately, it didn't go 100 percent like we wanted but we'll get another crack at it."

Comedy is often used as a tool to address controversial material or offer solace during difficult times, but Foxx's schtick caused an uproar when he hosted the 2015 iHeartRadio Awards. In fact, the comedian downright alienated an entire group of Americans — the LGBTQ community and its allies.

After barking jokes about Suge Knight and other troubled celebrities, Foxx went off about Caitlyn Jenner. "We got some groundbreaking performances here, too, tonight," Foxx quipped (via Us Weekly), adding, "We got Bruce Jenner, who will be here doing some musical performances. He's doing a his-and-her duet all by himself." He then addressed Jenner directly, saying, "Look, I'm just busting your balls while I still can."

Outraged viewers labeled Foxx transphobic, and Jenner's step-daughter Khloé Kardashian shared her disdain too, calling Foxx's words "very mean" (via Us Weekly). Jenner's son Burt Jenner also expressed outrage: "I think he is just copying Kevin Hart because Kevin Hart is taking all his movie opportunities."

Music has always been a passion for Foxx. "When I sit down there [at the piano to write] I'm really at home," he told E! News in 2015. He said his music comes from a place deep inside and is inspired by love. "That's universal, when you look at what music is about, what you want to say to a person that you're in love with, you know." 

In his career, he's put out five albums and garnered significant chart success with two singles — not including his features on other artists' work — "Unpredictable" (2006), which reached No. 8 on the
Billboard Hot 100 and "Blame It" (2009), which reached No. 2 on the same chart. But his 2015 album, Hollywood: A Story of a Dozen Roses, didn't fair so well commercially. Sure, in its first week it landed atop the Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, selling 31,000 copies, but it didn't stay there long. After the critical disappointment of that project, perhaps Foxx is taking a step back to recalculate his music career.

If you're searching for Foxx's next big hit movie or album, it may be better to check the local piano bar first. 

According to Page Six, the actor took a group of doctors and cancer survivors to New York City's Catch restaurant in April 2016. Not only did he pay the bill, but he also sang for the group too. Insiders told the site he performed Fat Joe's "All the Way Up," Drake's "Jumpman," and a song from his own catalog, "Gold Digger." 

Another Page Six report said Foxx spontaneously broke into song at the Big Apple's Mastro eatery months later. Sources said Foxx sang a snippet of Ray Charles' "I Got a Woman" while tickling the ivories.

A TV series Foxx worked on in 2017 might have given the star his most unlikely resume bullet points yet: game show producer and game show host. Along with a team of other executive producers that includes Mark Burnett (The Voice, Survivor), Foxx helped bring a hip, cool, technology-based version of the classic game show Name That Tune back to television. Beat Shazam asked contestants to quickly identify current and recent pop songs — and to answer faster than the powerful song-identifying artificial intelligence that powers Shazam, the popular smartphone app you can use to find out the name of that fun song playing in Old Navy. 

Not only did Foxx serve as an executive producer of this breezy addition to Fox's schedule, but he hosted, too. Audiences enjoyed Foxx in this new role so much that Fox ordered a second season of Beat Shazam before it finished running the first season. Season featured Jamie with his daughter, Corinne Foxx, as the resident on-stage DJ.

In a similar way to how Mark Wahlberg partnered with HBO to make Entourage – a single-camera comedy that was a fictionalized, romanticized take on his rise to movie stardom, Jamie Foxx got together with Showtime in 2017 to make a series loosely based on his own experiences trying to make it as a struggling young comedian. 

But while Entourage was little more than dude-bros high-fiving over all their good fortune, Foxx's White Famous had a dark and satirical edge. Lead character Floyd Mooney (Saturday Night Live star Jay Pharoah) had to weigh the pros and cons of breaking out of the world of "black comedy" and into mainstream success, aka being "white famous." While the show was sort of based on his own life, Foxx confusingly guest-starred in two episodes as ... Jamie Foxx. 

Unfortunately, the show failed to find an audience in today's crowded television climate, and Showtime canceled the series after a single ten-episode season.

While Foxx had been quiet for a couple of years, he took some baby steps back into the movie business in 2017. He starred in a quietly-released kidnapping drama called Sleepless. Unloaded to theaters in January — a month notorious for dumping bad movies — the film grossed a just-okay $20 million, and critics didn't care for it. According to Michael Nordine of the Village Voice, stars Michelle Monaghan and Foxx "for all their gifts, can't transcend the material, though they do get more out of it than most others would be able to."

Foxx's other big release of the year made a much bigger and more positive impact. He played a wildly unpredictable criminal named Bats in Edgar Wright's bank heist action comedy Baby Driver, a critical smash. It has a 93 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and broke $100 million at the box office. 

In 2017, Foxx also filmed his role in a star-studded adaptation of Robin Hood. Sure, the entertainment industry has made Robin Hood movies before, but this is the first time it's made one with Taron Egerton (Kingsman: The Secret Service) as the title character and Jamie Foxx as Little John.

With Baby Driver, Beat Shazam, and even White Famous reacquainting audiences with the Jamie Foxx brand, the actor's career looks bright. Foxx's Instagram account echoes reports that he's producing a series about another colorful and troubled music legend: Marvin Gaye (via The Hollywood Reporter). 

"Cannot wait to bring this man's legacy and life to the world," he captioned a snap of the singer. "I was impacted personally in the most incredible way! As an executive producer ... I vow to make it epic!"

Foxx is also set to headline All Star Weekend. In this sports comedy, Foxx and Jeremy Piven play a couple of tow truck drivers who score tickets to the NBA All-Star Game. Some guy named Robert Downey, Jr., who starred with Foxx in the 2009 drama The Soloist, also has a role in the film, which is Foxx's big-screen writing and directorial debut.