Late last week, Lainey broke down a report about Jamie Foxx and Katie Holmes calling off a wedding. As she said, it put them in the position of having to deny the wedding while also not confirming the break-up.
They can’t confirm a break-up because then it would confirm that they dated, something they’ve gone to great lengths to avoid talking about. Even though they’ve reportedly been dealing with one another since 2013, their first “public” appearance was in September 2017 (public being a beach in Malibu), followed up by sitting together at Clive Davis’ Grammys party in January of this year. Beyond that, they’ve managed to keep it down low, coast-to-coast, for years.
That’s why this wedding rumour put them in an interesting predicament – if they directly confirm or deny the breakup, they also confirm that the gossip has been at least partially true. Both of their reps denied the Radar Online wedding story to Gossip Cop (a preferred outlet of Katie’s, going back to at least 2016). The only other outlet that is as celebrity-friendly as Gossip Cop is PEOPLE, which is why it’s curious that this most recent story, Jamie Foxx ‘Doesn’t Seem Worried by Katie Holmes Relationship Rumours on Guys’ Weekend: Source, ended up getting dissected by Gossip Cop.
First, let’s break down the PEOPLE story, which is about Jamie being in Miami with his boys and not sweating his maybe-relationship with Katie. He’s the same cool guy he’s always been, nothing to see here. They also make a point about Jamie’s single status, reporting:
“He got in Friday night and headed straight to Top Golf to meet up with his boys and enjoy the festivities,” the source continues, adding that while there are “women around,” Foxx isn’t “flirting much this time around.”
So Jamie isn’t flirting, but if he wanted to, there’d be lots of options. But he is choosing not to, for reasons that may or may not have anything to do with Katie Holmes. Either way, Jamie isn’t worried, OK?
This is way more complicated than it needs to be. Clearly the “source” is someone very close to Jamie, someone who knows his travel schedule and his whereabouts. This is sanctioned. These two are bending themselves into a pretzel over a wedding story that originated on Radar Online. Why? Katie in particular has been the subject of many wild and bizarre rumours over the years, so why sweat this one, which would disappear quickly?
And why did Gossip Cop swoop in and report on PEOPLE’s reporting, chastising them for tying Katie Holmes into Jamie’s boys weekend? They call all stories surrounding the timing of his trip to Miami and Katie’s trip to Paris for Fashion Week as “meaningless.” Gossip Cop also asserts that they are the ones who got the exclusive denial on the wedding from Foxx’s rep and a confirmation from Holmes’ team regarding the non-wedding.
Gossip Cop wants to push one point: the relationship is casual. That is essentially what PEOPLE has said over the years (in February, they ran a story all about how it wasn’t a traditional relationship). Both outlets are in agreement about this, so why did Gossip Cop label PEOPLE’s latest coverage, alongside Page Six, as sensational, when PEOPLE clearly has the go-ahead to report on Jamie’s Miami weekend? It could be that Gossip Cop is marking its territory and setting itself up as the exclusive source for all things Jamie and Katie by getting a dig in at PEOPLE.
Still, for some reason, Jamie and Katie don’t like the marriage rumour – in 2016, she posted a link to a Gossip Cop story on her Instagram account (a rare acknowledgement of tabloid gossip) and Jamie will walk out of interview if you mention her name.
That’s why it’s curious that they both decided that a nothing story on Radar Online – a story that even a casual gossip follower would dismiss – was enough to garner a rebuttal from both of their reps. As often happens with celebrities, when they try to shut down a story, they stoke it. By pushing the “casual and private” narrative, they’ve put a premium on their photos and their response to stories.
That would be fine if they stayed underground, but they haven’t and have slightly strayed from that (Malibu and the Clive Davis party). So now they are in an in-between world where they can’t say “our relationship is private” because they can’t confirm there is a relationship, and they can’t deny it as a fabrication, either.
So why did this particular wedding rumour at this particular time warrant a double strike by their reps? There have been pregnancy reports, rumours about their relationship with one another’s children, headlines about her being left at the altar (what did her dress look like?), reports that Katie wrote a tell-all about Tom and Jamie (huh?) and more rumours about Katie dumping Jamie for Joshua Jackson (Okkkkkkkkk).
What’s the threshold for what they ignore and what they deny? Do their reps agree on terms before reaching out to outlets? Because they may be causal, but they are still cooperatively strategic and they definitely do not want anyone to think they are getting married. Do you think they ever talk about the couch jumping? Because that’s kind of what the public aspect to their relationship is playing out as – the opposite of that kind of, um, unbridled enthusiasm.
