Jamie Foxx Tearfully Thanks God for Giving Him a “Second Chance” After Health Scare AT The 2025 BET Awards!

Jamie Foxx got emotional while accepting the Ultimate Icon Award at the 2025 BET Awards on Monday night.

The actor-comedian-singer struggled to hold back tears during his speech as he thanked God for giving him a “second chance” following his health emergency in April 2023. He revealed in his Netflix special, Jamie Foxx: What Had Happened Was…, that he had suffered a brain bleed that led to a stroke.

“I cannot even begin to express the love that I feel from everybody out there,” Foxx began after accepting the award. “I gotta be honest, when I saw the In Memoriam, I was like, man, it could have been me. I don’t know why I went through what I went through, but I know my second chance, I’m not gonna turn down.”

“I have so much love to give. I told him [God], I said, man, just give me one more crack at this,” Foxx continued as his eyes filled with tears. “I said, for whatever reason you put this on me, I promise I’m gonna do right. And I’m gonna do right in front of y’all ’cause I know a lot of times when we get on, we forget about where we come from. When I did my special, it was in front of Black people. Black people were the ones that said, man, we got you. Not to say that white people can’t pray either. I know that sounds weird, but y’all know what I’m saying. It’s like you guys held me down, and I don’t want to make this whole speech about that, but you can’t go through something like that and not testify.”

Elsewhere during his speech, Foxx also thanked BET “for this wonderful award.” He added, “I say this all the time, thank you to Black people and the Black award, because this is what really counts. A lot of people think like the Oscars is the biggest thing, and we got to quit thinking like that. And that’s coming from a person who won an Oscar, I was nominated twice, but the Icon Award is the most important award because it comes from us.”

The 25th BET Awards, hosted by Kevin Hart, were held at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles Monday night. Check out the full winners list and the night’s red carpet arrivals here.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

‘One of Them Days’ Sequel With Keke Palmer And SZA In the Works

It’s about to be another “One of Them Days,” as a sequel to the hit comedy starring Keke Palmer and SZA and produced by Issa Rae is in early development at TriStar Pictures.

Palmer and SZA are expected to return for the new movie, along with the film’s original creative team, but plot details are still being kept under wraps.

Directed by Lawrence Lamont in his feature debut and from a script written by Syreeta Singleton, “One of Them Days” was a breakout hit at the box office, grossing over $50 million worldwide after its January release — a particularly strong number for an R-rated mid-budget comedy. The critically acclaimed movie (with a stellar 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes) was also a standout on Netflix, where it spent three weeks on the streamer’s top 10 list.

The film follows best friends and roommates Dreux (Palmer) and Alyssa (SZA) as they race against the clock to avoid eviction when they discover Alyssa’s boyfriend has blown their rent money on the same day Dreux has an important interview for her dream gig. The South Los Angeles-set movie, which drew comparisons to classic comedies like “Friday,” also stars Lil Rel Howery, Janelle James, Keyla Monterroso Mejia, Maude Apatow, Katt Williams, Joshua Neal, Aziza Scott, Patrick Cage, Dewayne Perkins, Amin Joseph, Gabrielle Dennis and DomiNque Perry.

“One of Them Days” was produced by Rae’s Hoorae Media with Macro Film Studios co-financing. Producers also included ColorCreative co-founder Deniese Davis, Hoorae’s Sara Rastogi and Macro’s James Lopez and Poppy Hanks. Executive producers were Palmer, Sharon Palmer, Charles D. King and Jeff Valeri.

The project was born from the CoCre lab at Sony Pictures, where Singleton’s script (originally titled “The Jungles” after the South L.A. neighborhood where it’s set) spent nearly seven years in development before launching in theaters. The lab was a pact between ColorCreative and Sony Pictures, announced in 2018, to source and incubate emerging, diverse screenwriters to develop and write their first studio feature based on original ideas.

“It’s something to be really proud of. A lot of studios want to create programs to find new writers and champion new voices, and a lot of those initiatives fizzled out,” TriStar Pictures president Nicole Brown told Variety in an interview conducted earlier this year about the CoCre lab.

“This program is, while modern, in terms of championing diverse voices, it’s old-fashioned in the way of believing in writers, believing in talent, investing in talented people, and saying, ‘Let’s keep building this relationship,’” Brown said. “When we’re patient and invest in talent, then great work can come. But we have to give them the time to build, and we’ve got to give them the support. I hope it will inspire more studios to invest in great voices and give them the time to build great things.”

Rastogi conceived the program with her then-colleague Bryan Smiley while they worked at Sony’s Columbia Pictures. “It’s been a long journey and process, and an atypical one as well,” Rastogi said. “Getting paid is one of the biggest barriers to entry, and as we talked about it, it became apparent that there’s a big difference between the person who gets to sit at the coffee shop and write and the person who has to work at the coffee shop.”

With that in mind, a key element of the program was that the selected writers would get paid during the process. The idea, Rastogi explained, was, “Let’s build something that allows them to walk away with eligibility for the WGA, a studio-developed project and hopefully that project can turn into a full-fledged feature film and go through the studio pipeline. This program was meant to be the cheat code.”

The Sony team then turned to Rae and Davis at ColorCreative, who founded their company on the tenet of supporting diverse voices. In 2014, Rae and Davis launched an initiative to give three underserved writers a chance to produce their pilot and gain experience as showrunners. (Singleton was one of those three pilot writers, which led to her being staffed on Rae’s hit HBO show “Insecure” before serving as showrunner on “Rap Sh!t” for Max.) By the time Sony came knocking, ColorCreative had already worked with companies like Project Greenlight and BET to develop pipeline partnerships, so they’d learned how to build something that could make a real impact.

“When you look at lab programs or other pipeline programs, they normally exist just for development. Which is a huge win, but it’s very rare that it results in a job or a produced piece of work,” Davis explained. “We always felt like that’s the ultimate moment of success in terms of someone’s career: You can tell someone you’ve had something developed, and no one knows about it, but when it’s produced, then you have better legs to stand on.”

Singleton’s script was one of four projects selected, and the creative team worked for years to develop it into the right package. “Prior to that, I had just been writing spec scripts, so I didn’t have any expectations,” Singleton recalled. “I felt very seen, understood, comfortable and excited. Like my stories were in good hands with people who genuinely cared about what it was I was trying to do.”

A couple of years and a couple drafts of the script later, Palmer signed on to the project, with her star power legitimizing it as a potential theatrical play. Then Lamont, who’d worked with the team on HBO’s “Rap Sh!t,” was tapped to direct. But when SZA got on board and the project moved to TriStar Pictures, things kicked into high gear.

“I adore fresh perspectives and bold voices, and when this script rose to the top and felt ready to get into a serious production conversation, I immediately said, ‘I love these characters.’ I saw the chemistry. I saw the sparkle, the fairy dust, and that’s a reason in and of itself to make a movie,’” Brown said of giving the green light. “I knew there was magic there, and I was honored to get to work on something that I could understand so well, personally, but also knew how to support in the studio system.”

And because Palmer and SZA had a short window of availability, pre-production got underway in April 2024, so that cameras could begin rolling in July. The studio set the project for an early 2025 release date, meaning that they’d need to get the movie out in under a year.

“We were shooting an original comedy developed at a studio by a first-time writer, a first-time filmmaker and SZA’s first film. We were just like, ‘Guys, we better just put our heads down and get this going before someone adds up all the firsts,’” said Talitha Watkins, president of ColorCreative, which represents Lamont and Singleton. “I say this all the time, ‘You’ve got to be a thug to get a movie made in Hollywood. And we thugged this one out.”

Added Davis: “This is a miracle. But along the way, there was active growth and pieces were being placed to really give this an opportunity, to make this a different trajectory than what happens to projects in other labs. It takes belief. They say, ‘The biggest risk in Hollywood usually comes out to the best successes.’ I’m often surprised how often people don’t want to take risk in this town. Everyone who was a part of this project was willing to take that risk.”

For Singleton, who paid tribute to her South L.A. community with the buddy comedy, stepping onto set the first day was a dream come true.

“It was just like, so surreal,” she recalled. “It was just like, ‘Wow, they really let us shoot a movie in the Jungles. That’s crazy.’ I never take it for granted when something that I’ve written becomes [a real project].”

Singleton continued: “My hope and prayer is, with a story like this and with the excitement around it, that it gets more studios excited to invest in these kinds of stories again. I do have more stories to tell, and I hope that it gets a little easier every time — in terms of the amount of time that it takes. I hope that we all begin to see the value and demand.”

Evidently, TriStar was paying attention — and now they’re running it back for a sequel.

Source: Variety

Jamie Foxx Produces Indie Queer Road Trip Thriller Premiering At Tribeca Titled ‘Ride or Die’

All is fair in love and war, but what if you’re at war with the one you love? First time director Josalynn Smith‘s debut “Ride or Die” challenges the idealization of a long-festering crush with a queer thriller twist. Jamie Foxx‘s Foxxhole Productions produces the feature, which will premiere at Tribeca in the U.S. Narrative Competition.

“Ride or Die” centers on Paula (Briana Middleton), who is unexpectedly reunited with her not-quite-ex Sloane (Stella Everett). Together, they decide to drive across the country to start a new life…but little do they know there is a darkness on the horizon. The clip below hints at some of the turmoil the duo will endure.

The synopsis reads: “When Paula (Middleton), a young Midwesterner who dreams of a fresh start in California, runs into Sloane (Everett), her secret high school crush, who has her demons, the chemistry is electric. What starts as a casual reunion between two high school classmates quickly evolves into something deeper when they make a spontaneous decision to road-trip across the country together. However, unforeseen consequences make their journey more perilous, transforming their whirlwind romance into a tense thriller.”

Cody Kostro, Eisa Davis, Guinevere Turner, Amin el Gamal, and Ella Jay Basco also star.

Foxx told IndieWire that writer/director Smith is already a force. “Josalynn Smith is an exciting new voice in film, and we are proud to be a part of her feature debut,” Foxx and fellow Foxxhole Productions producer Datari Turner said in a statement. “We can’t wait for audiences to see the film.”

Smith, Foxx, Turner, and Matthew Keene Smith of Twice Told Films all produce the film, with Keely Weiss, Lois Drabkin, Jason McLagan, and Alicia Louzoun-Heisler co-producing. The executive producers are Aaron L. Gilbert and Santiago Garcia Galvan. The cinematographer is Lee Muller.

Foxx recently made his return to the screen with the 2024 film “Back in Action.” Foxx reunited with his “Annie” and “Any Given Sunday” co-star Cameron Diaz for the action-comedy. Foxx and Turner also executive-produced. “Back in Action” was a turning point for both lead stars: Diaz had announced her retirement in 2018 and had not appeared onscreen since “Annie” in 2014 with Foxx. Production on the Netflix feature “Back in Action” was paused when Foxx suffered from a medical complication in April 2023; Foxx later said that he went “to hell and back” with his health at the time.

“Ride or Die” premieres at June 8 at the Tribeca Festival as a sales title from CAA. Check out the first look clip from the film below.

Dave Chappelle Announces 5th Year Of Comedy Shows In Yellow Springs

YELLOW SPRINGS — Award-winning comedian Dave Chappelle has announced he is coming to Yellow Springs for multiple hometown shows this summer.

‘Dave Chappelle’s Summer Camp’ has become a summer tradition and will be celebrating its fifth year in 2025.

The newly announced show dates span three summer weekends at Wirrig Pavilion: July 2, 3, 5; August 14, 15, 16; and August 21, 22, 23.

The series of cornfield comedy shows began ‘as a pandemic-era response to support the local community,’ according to a media release.

Now, the comedy shows continue to serve as unique and intimate experiences of top-tier comedy in Chappelle’s hometown.

Each show is a phone-free experience where phones, smart watches, and accessories will not be permitted in the performance space, according to the media release.

Tickets will be available beginning Friday, June 6 at 12 p.m. ET at ticketmaster.com.

EXCLUSIVE- Interview With Tisha Campbell As She Discusses Her Journey Into Stand Up!

We got a chance to have a quick chat with actress and now comedian Tisha Campbell as she discussed her newest journey into stand-up, and the world of touring!

Probably best known for her iconic roles in School Daze, House Party, Another 48 Hrs., Boomerang, Martin, and My Wife And Kids in a career that spanned over four decades, we had a conversation with her about how she was able to get her on stage and how stand up came about.

Check out the interview below;

Make sure you check out The Dayumm Gina Comedy Show Tour when it comes to a city near you!

Hartbeat To Premiere “LOL Live,” Collection of Stand-Up Specials, On Hulu

Hartbeat, the global entertainment company founded by Kevin Hart where comedy meets culture, has announced an all-new stand-up series, LOL Live, showcasing a lineup of all-star comedians. The first two LOL Live comedy specials will premiere on Friday, June 6th, only on Hulu.

Filmed last summer during Hartbeat Weekend at Resorts World Las Vegas, the collection of 10 half-hour specials will feature sets from Brandi Denise, Chico Bean, Chinedu Unaka, Daphnique Springs, Devon Walker, Justin Silva, Ken Flores, Lea’h Sampson, Malik B, and Sydnee Washington.

Hulu will release two LOL Live specials every month, starting on June 6 with Daphnique Springs and the late Ken Flores, who tragically passed away earlier this year at the age of 28. Hartbeat began working with Flores in June of 2024 when he performed on the first episode of their SiriusXM stand-up showcase, HOT MIC.  

“Hartbeat has a proven track record of bringing hit stand-up specials to the masses” said Jeff Clanagan, Hartbeat’s President & Chief Distribution Officer. “Our partnership with Hulu for LOL Live marks a continuation of that mission as we bring some of the brightest voices in comedy straight into viewers’ homes.”

LOL Live continues Hartbeat’s legacy of spotlighting rising and established stand-up talent, building on the success of its global comedy showcase “Comedy in Color,” which has featured over 300 comedians from more than 30 countries. The new series also marks the second stand-up franchise to emerge from Hartbeat Weekend, following last year’s reboot of BET’s Comic View, which was hosted by Mike Epps and filmed in front of a live audience at Hartbeat Weekend 2023.  Hartbeat is also responsible for producing multiple hit stand up specials including Kevin Hart’s Acting My Age Tour and Zero F**ks Given, London Hughes: To Catch a D*ck, David A. Arnold’s It Ain’t for the Weak!, and more.

Producer Jeff Clanagan, President & Chief Distribution Officer and Kevin Hart’s longtime collaborator also known for creating Shaq’s All Star Comedy Jam and revamping BET’s Comic View, spearheads this latest Hartbeat project. 

The specials are produced by Jeff Clanagan. Executive producers include Kevin Hart, Bryan Smiley, Luke Kelly-Clyne, and Eric Weil for Hartbeat, alongside Don’t Tell Comedy’s Kyle Kazanjian-Amory, Brett Kushner, and Marissa Gallant.  All 10 specials are directed by Marcus Russell Price (“Keith Robinson: Different Strokes,” “Zainab Johnson: Hijabs Off”) and filmed in front of a live audience at Zouk Nightclub, located inside Resorts World Las Vegas. 

Full Release Schedule: