Jamie Foxx detailed the mysterious health scare that landed him in the hospital in 2023 in his new Netflix comedy special Jamie Foxx: What Had Happened Was, in which he recapped “the worst year” of his life.
Addressing a crowd over three nights in Atlanta this past September, Foxx revealed that he was diagnosed with “a brain bleed that led to a stroke” in April 2023.
Foxx was moved to tears several times during his special as he recounted exactly what happened that fateful day. “April 11, I was having a bad headache, and I asked my boy for Aspirin. I realized quickly that when you’re in a medical emergency, your boys don’t know what the fuck to do,” he joked.
He recalled that he blacked out before he could even take the Aspirin.
“I don’t remember 20 days,” he admitted.
The first doctor he saw reportedly gave him a shot of cortisone before sending him away. “What the fuck is that?” Foxx joked. “I don’t know if you can do Yelps for doctors, but that’s half a star.”
But Foxx ultimately credited his sister, Diedra Dixon, with saving his life. She rushed him to Piedmont Hospital after noting he was becoming “lethargic,” where he was diagnosed and rushed into surgery.
“My sister knelt down outside the operating room and prayed the whole time,” Foxx said.
The comedian joked that he “saw the tunnel,” but he “didn’t see the light.”
“It was hot in that tunnel,” he said. “Shit, am I going to the wrong place in this motherfucker? Because I looked at the end of the tunnel, and I thought I saw the Devil like, ‘C’mon.’ Or is that Puffy [Sean “Diddy” Combs]?”
Foxx explained that his doctor told his family, “‘He may be able to make a full recovery but it’s gonna be the worst year of his life.”
The Oscar winning actor did not spare any details as he recounted what the next several months were like for him, including being bathed by nurses and undergoing rehabilitation in Chicago where he learned how to walk again.
“It was touch and go,” Foxx said of those first several days. “The first 15 days they thought they were gonna lose me because my vitals were out of control.” But he experienced a “miracle” when his 14-year-old daughter Anelise Bishop snuck into his hospital room with her guitar, causing his vitals go down. Bishop then joined him on stage for an emotional duet that brought them both to tears.
But Foxx held onto his sense of humor through the ordeal. He even dispelled the “clone” rumors once and for all, telling the Atlanta audience, “You motherfuckers really thought I was a clone? … You can’t clone this. I brought you too much original shit.”
Jamie Foxx: What Had Happened Was is streaming now on Netflix.