They say good news travels fast, but it’s the worst stuff that seems to spread the quickest. For the past few days, we’ve seen that in action thanks to endless unchecked reports about the health of actor Jamie Foxx. Over the last week or so, we’ve seen what happens when bad reporting, good-faith concerns, and a desperation to go viral combine, all in the name of finding out a truth that none of us are entitled to.
In April, it was revealed by Foxx’s daughter Corinne that her father had ‘experienced a medical complication’ while working on his latest film, Back in Action, and was sent to a hospital in Atlanta. Corinne Foxx posted a statement to Instagram, adding that ‘due to quick action and great care he is already on his way to recovery.’ It didn’t take long for the conspiratorial thinking and tabloid frenzy to take over. Foxx has kept out of the spotlight since then, with his last Instagram post being a note of appreciation to fans following his illness. Other details were, understandably, thin on the ground. Foxx’s friend Kevin Hart said that there was ‘a lot of progression’ in his recovery, while People claimed that Foxx had undergone some testing while in an Atlanta hospital. In this space where no news seemed to be bad news, the fearmongering began.
A site called RapTV, which describes itself on Twitter as ‘the #1 community in the world’, posted a tweet on April 27 claiming that Foxx ‘had to be revived after he had a stroke on set [prayer emoji].’ They did not link to any actual report of this, but on Instagram, they cited Radar Online, a notoriously unreliable gossip site that is owned by the same media company as the National Enquirer. This is the site whose former senior executive editor, Dylan Howard, helped to provide Harvey Weinstein with dirt on Rose McGowan. This Radar story inspired a glut of aggregate news rip-offs, none of which seemed to follow up on this claim or do any further digging into the so-called source. RapTV’s spreading of this news gained particular attention because its tweets went viral and had no linked source. They were also called out directly by Corinne Foxx after a post claiming that Foxx’s family was ‘preparing for the worst.’ Corinne posted an Instagram Story calling out how ‘sad [it was] to see how the media runs wild.’ She also revealed that her dad has been out of the hospital for weeks. RapTV then turned that into a news story without citing why it was necessary in the first place.
Jamie Foxx ‘s daughter Corinne posts an update on her father on IG:
"Update from family: Sad to see how the media runs wild. My Dad has been out of the hospital for weeks, recuperating. In fact, he was playing pickleball yesterday! Thanks for everyone's prayers and support!” pic.twitter.com/s95YicOR0F
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) May 12, 2023
We’re so used to everything being readily available to us at all times. Many celebrities preach a philosophy of supposed transparency, revealing everything to their fans. Others keep things tight-lipped. Either way, the media feels entitled to more. This can be particularly unsettling when what is at stake is a person’s medical privacy. We’ve been through this cycle too many times, including recently when the Daily Mail published the birth certificate of Rihanna and A$AP Rocky’s child to reveal his name. There’s a lot of business in posting the official causes of death of famous people too. When you’re seen on some level as public property, so is your health, whether you like it or not.
Celebrities and the media have a mutually beneficial relationship. It’s required for either side to get their jobs done, and sometimes it’s just the most efficient way to get one’s message across, even in the age of social media. We know which publications are more reliable than others. When you see a source telling People that a celebrity is pregnant, that’s probably true because that’s a sturdy magazine with a long-established relationship with publicists and the like. If you see, say, In Touch claiming a marriage is in trouble, you can basically dismiss that outright. If it’s in the National Enquirer, you should view that as fiction of near-fantastical qualities (and yes, I know those last two magazines have landed a few exclusives, but the journalists who pulled them off no longer work there.) It’s tougher to wade through with endless sites and blogs popping up, the new omnipresence of blind gossip cesspools like Deuxmoi, and social media’s ability to spin anything into bad-faith hysteria. Jamie and Corinne Foxx said he was doing okay. They didn’t make a big detailed announcement but they offered a few words. That wasn’t enough for some, and in the silence, which should have been a period of quiet recuperation for him, even some of his famous contemporaries panicked that he was on his deathbed because of one sleazy headline. Even an exclusive from People reporting that Foxx wasn’t in a life-threatening condition didn’t pick up as much steam on social media as the RapTV and Radar nonsense.
It sadly doesn’t seem like this incident will lead to the culprits learning some much-needed lessons. Foxx’s welfare wasn’t the priority of Radar Online, RapTV, or the people who wanted viral tweets. It’s all content to them, at the end of the day. A lot of the most pernicious gossip spreads not because we necessarily believe it but because its salaciousness overrides our desire for the truth. But we certainly do seek knowledge in some way, some eager hunger for those details that let us feel like we’ve been let in on a big secret. That certainly seems far more sinister when the secret in question is a stranger’s health, which could be in terrible shape. Remember how people gawked at Chadwick Boseman when he was seen looking frail in public, theorizing everything from drug use to method-acting weight loss, all before his tragic passing.
I’ve talked a lot about the positives of gossip, of the immense power it can give us in terms of understanding our world and ourselves. Knowing how to dissect the ways that people in power are discussed, and who is telling those stories, is a crucial part of media literacy. But as with all forms of rhetoric, it comes with caveats and responsibilities. It seems futile to demand that everyone check their sources in the current media age, but it does matter. Still, small acts of individual responsibility seem like inevitable collateral damage when the endgame is virality. The Foxx case, however, does offer us another key reminder: sometimes, when a celebrity says something, it’s OK to take it at face value. Even if there is something dastardly going on with his health, it clearly wouldn’t benefit a sick man to have such matters become fodder for clickbait speculation. He’s not going to high-five you for publishing nonsense that undoubtedly upset him and his loved ones. This is an issue at the heart of current conspiracy-driven fandom and media fervour: when the truth is mundane, there are plenty who will see more dramatic answers where there are none.
I’m not sure there’s a way to truly stop this problem. It’s not as though Twitter is concerned with preventing the spread of false information. It’s the business model for that hellscape app, as well as most of modern media, to the point where sites are now happy to use AI rather than humans because quality and accuracy are secondary to attention. At least on an individual level, we can always check our sources and remember when it’s appropriate to stay silent.
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May 16, 2023 at 02:16AM
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The Jamie Foxx Story is a Reminder of the Dangers of Unchecked Celebrity Gossip - Pajiba Entertainment News
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