Corinne Foxx tells ET the extraordinary story of how her fiancé, Joe Hooten, got the approval of her family, including dad Jamie Foxx.
As Corinne Foxx's wedding to her fiancé, Joe Hooten, draws near, the 30-year-old is opening up about her romance with her longtime love and what she's looking forward to for their big day.
When Corinne chatted with ET's Nischelle Turner and Kevin Frazier during ET's Bahamas Week at the Baha Mar Resort, the Beat Shazam host confessed that "wedding planning is stressful!"
"It's gonna be a big one. When I asked my dad for his list, he told me he has 300 people alone," Corinne shares of her seemingly growing list of wedding guests. "I said we're gonna have to cut down a little bit! I have cousins that I don't think I'm related to, you know what I mean? I have cousins and uncles and I'm like, are these family members? Who are these people!"
But with a father like Jamie Foxx, it's no surprise that the wedding is shaping up to be quite a party!
"[It's] true, I gotta trust him," Corinne says of her father's part in wedding planning. The TV producer concedes that her father has "a vision" for her wedding, but admits that it doesn't quite align with her ideas. "He was telling me he wanted LED screens with my face on it and I was like, I don't know about all of that..."
Corinne announced her engagement to Hooten in December, who, as revealed by a Coverfly profile, is an accomplished writer-director and television executive, currently employed at John Wells Productions. His profile highlights his passion for telling emotionally charged and thought-provoking stories about socio-economic classism.
While the exact beginning of Corinne and Joe's relationship remains shrouded in mystery, it is known that the pair both attended the University of Southern California and crossed paths in 2018, according to reports by Page Six.
And when it comes to when Hooten cemented his place in the family, Corinne tells ET it was thanks to her fiancé's heroic deeds during a family vacation in Hawai'i.
"We were in Hawai'i on a snorkeling tour and none of my family knows how to swim," she recalls. "So, we're all in the middle of the ocean [and] everyone starts drowning. One by one, my fiancé dived in, brought some back, dived in brought some back. My dad said, 'He's a keeper! He saved the family.'"
For Corinne, Hooten had secured his place in her heart from day one. She tells ET that she knew he was the one on "the first date."
"I called my girlfriend, I said, 'I just met my husband,'" she admits.
While Corinne says she and Hooten are in "a good spot" with wedding planning and "basically have everything done," she jokes that the only remaining task is to prevent Jamie from arriving at the ceremony on a horse. She has also given in to the inevitable fact that her father will want to get on the mic at some point during the day's festivities.
With such an involved father, it's no surprise that Corinne says Jamie has a lot of feelings about the big day that will most likely result in some tears being shed.
"I'm a little worried about him walking me down the aisle," she quips. "Obviously it's gonna be beautiful and amazing but, yeah, he's gonna be crying for sure."
It's an especially momentous occasion for the Foxx family as Corinne's nuptials occur over a year after Jamie was hospitalized and recovered from an unspecified medical emergency.
News of Jamie's hospitalization was shared in April 2023. The nature of his medical emergency was never revealed, though Corinne spoke out to shut down speculation on the actor's health.
Nick Cannon and Kelly Osbourne stepped in as the host and resident DJ while Jamie was hospitalized for the show's sixth season. In addition to Beat Shazam, Jamie was replaced by Anthony Anderson as the host of the 2023 Emmys. The actor also took time away from his film, Back in Action.
Jamie returned to the red carpet and marked his first public appearance in December 2023. In January, the GRAMMY-winning star resumed filming alongside Cameron Diaz for Back in Action.
"He's doing so great, he's doing amazing," Corinne says of her father. "[I'm] so grateful to be able to work on [Beat Shazam] with him and spend so much time with him. He's playing a lot of pickleball! That man and pickleball; it's like he's playing twice a day every day... It's a whole thing. He's fully in it."
Beat Shazam airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on Fox.
RELATED CONTENT:
