Article - Jamie Foxx: The master of the entertainment universe

Let’s face it – Jamie Foxx can do just about anything he wants. After he accidentally leaked a pickle shot onto the Internet, he claimed the nude self-portrait was for an upcoming movie role. After he joked on his satellite radio show that Miley Cyrus should make a sex tape and do some heroin, he simply apologized to her and all was immediately forgiven. No one holds anything against him because, well, he’s one of the great talents of his generation, a Rat Pack throwback who can act, tell jokes and sing.

Oddly, Foxx still feels like he has to prove himself when it comes to his musical prowess, despite his latest album, Intuition, being his second consecutive R&B smash. “Until you get a chance to define another side of your career, people will always say, ‘You’re doing it as a hobby,’” he imparts by phone.

That Foxx has become a multiplatform star with an Oscar — not to mention perhaps the country’s most eligible bachelor — is all the more astonishing when considering he was raised in a segregated community outside of Dallas and abandoned by his parents as a baby. (After entering into the custody of his mother’s adoptive parents, he became, legally speaking, his own uncle.) Singing in his church’s choir and working as its pianist, he later won a piano scholarship to a San Diego college, after which he moved to L.A. and got his start combining music and stand-up comedy.

His current concert tour returns to those roots —“It’s really like a variety show,” Foxx says — and it’s named for his somehow-still-played hit “Blame It,” which was released in January. Foxx says it was Ron Howard’s cameo in the track’s video that really put the song over the top. “Because when people like Ryan Seacrest saw that video, they were like, ‘Wait, what’s Ron Howard doing in this video?’ and they gave it a completely different look,” Foxx notes.

Who knows? Maybe Miley Cryus will be in the next one. When it comes to the entertainment industry, Uncle Jamie pretty much calls the shots.