Cameron Diaz Quitting Acting Again, This Time Because Of Jamie Foxx?
Cameron Diaz's return to Hollywood in Jamie Foxx's action-comedy Back in Action is over just as soon as it began due to Foxx's on-set temper tantrum that resulted in three people losing their jobs.
Have you noticed that Cameron Diaz hasn’t been in very many movies these days? There’s a simple reason for that: back in 2018, the star announced that she was retiring from acting, and she had the full intent to focus on spending time with her family. Jamie Foxx recently lured her back to Hollywood to star in the action comedy Back in Action, but now the Daily Mail reports that after Foxx “had an absolute meltdown” on set, she will re-retire from acting after wrapping production on the current film.
According to an insider familiar with the drama, Foxx’s alleged meltdown was quite epic, resulting in the star (himself an executive producer on the film) firing several people, including another executive producer, two directors, and Foxx’s driver. From the outside looking in, this sounds like typical Hollywood prima donna behavior. Interestingly, though, said meltdown is not the primary reason that Cameron Diaz is planning to once again retire from acting.
Instead, what is driving Cameron Diaz to retire after this movie wraps is the same thing that drove her to retire in the first place: she wants to spend more time with her family. Diaz is currently married to the rockstar Benji Madden of Good Charlotte, and they are raising a three-year-old daughter together. Returning to the world of acting has meant returning to working 10 hours each day, and even though Diaz has been able to see her family while on the set of this UK film, she still hasn’t been able to spend nearly as much time with them as she would like.
It’s worth noting that Cameron Diaz would never have returned to acting if not for Jamie Foxx. Back in 2018, Diaz was content to retire after making a whopping 40 movies, but Foxx is a close personal friend, so he was able to secure her return for what was meant to be a comeback movie. And according to the same insider, Foxx’s alleged meltdown is not going to damage the relationship between the stars, and it is Diaz’s desire to spend more time with her husband and child that is solely motivating her decision to go back into retirement.
Interestingly, even though Cameron Diaz and Jamie Foxx are good friends, he knew that their friendship alone was not going to be enough to bring her back to Hollywood, so he brought out the big guns. Insisting that he “had to call in the GOAT to bring back another GOAT,” Foxx got NFL star Tom Brady (who famously retired, came out of retirement, and then retired again) to help coax Diaz back to making movies. Whether Brady helped that much or not, Foxx got his wish, and Diaz came back to star in this movie, although she has now followed more in Brady’s footsteps than Foxx’s by once again announcing her retirement.
While all of this drama surrounding Cameron Diaz is noteworthy, the actor knows better than anyone else that she has nothing left to prove to Hollywood. Many of her movies, including the Ben Stiller comedy There’s Something About Mary, helped permanently shape the film landscape for years afterward. Here’s hoping that her brief comeback film Back In Action ends up having as much compelling drama onscreen as it has been having onscreen.
