14 DAY TRIAL // Actor and singer Jamie Foxx said in a recent interview that members of the LAPD are guilty of racial profiling as far as he’s concerned, often pulling him over for the mere reason that he smiled too widely.
Granted, the comments were made on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Digital Spy points out, which could very well mean that Foxx was joking – after all, he does have a track record for making jokes of this type.
Either way, the star told Leno that he was often pulled over in Los Angeles by cops because he was black and in a neighborhood that didn’t quite “suit” black people.
“I get pulled over all the time. I live in Westlake. A black man in Westlake? That just don’t happen,” Foxx said. The Westlake community is very exclusive, useless to say.
“I got pulled over the other day for being black and happy. ‘What’s all that smiling about? You’re smiling back there.’ I was guilty,” Foxx went on to say.
It could very well be though, as also pointed above, that Foxx didn’t actually mean to say that he was a victim of racial profiling, but merely that he was making a joke and it got twisted in the media, it’s being said.
Back in April 2009, for instance, the same happened when he went on the record with his thoughts on Miley Cyrus’ future and career, prompting a media storm that he did his best to weather with a heartfelt apology.
As we also noted back then, Foxx said that Miley needed to do heroin, smoke crack and thus follow the celebrity pattern of growing up – and, at the same time, to shut up about the media attention she was getting all the time.
After furious comments from fans, the media and Miley’s family, Foxx publicly apologized, saying he was trying to make a joke about celebrity culture and Miley’s name simply dragged into it. But it was just generalization.
“I am a comedian, and you guys know that whatever I say, I don’t mean any of it. And sometimes, as comedians, as we do, we go a little bit too far… There was a situation with Miley Cyrus, and I just want to say, I apologize for what I said. I didn’t mean it maliciously,” Foxx said.