In his new Netflix comedy special “What Had Happened Was,” Jamie Foxx finally told the story behind the mysterious and harrowing medical emergency that left him hospitalized and fighting for his life in 2023.
Emerging on stage and proclaiming “I’m back!” as he danced and hyped up the crowd, Foxx said his life was saved just 400 yards from the Atlanta theater, at Piedmont Hospital.
The Oscar and Grammy winner held back tears as he discussed his “mystery illness,” saying, “Please, Lord, let me get through this.”
“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,” Foxx joked.
He said before he could even take the Aspirin, he blacked out and remained unconscious for weeks. “I don’t remember 20 days,” Foxx said. He was told that his friends took him to a doctor in Atlanta who gave him a cortisone shot and sent him on his way. “What the fuck is that?” Foxx quipped. “I don’t know if you can do Yelps for doctors, but that’s half a star.”
His sister Deidra Dixon, who he described as “4-foot-11 of nothing but pure love,” knew that Foxx was experiencing something much more severe. “She says, ‘Get him in the car. That ain’t my brother right there,'” Foxx said. “She drove around — she didn’t know anything about Piedmont Hospital, but she had a hunch that some angels [were] in there.”
At Piedmont, a doctor told Dixon that Foxx was “having a brain bleed that has led to a stroke,” and that if they didn’t operate on him as soon as possible he would die. “My sister knelt down outside the operating room and prayed the whole time,” Foxx said.
He said it “was kind of oddly peaceful” being unconscious, adding, “I saw the tunnel. I didn’t see the light.” Foxx then joked, “It was hot in that tunnel. 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 Combs]?”
After the procedure, the doctor told Dixon that Foxx “may be able to make a full recovery, but it’s going to be the worst year of his life.” Foxx concurred: “That’s what it was.”
As he entered his recovery process, Foxx said Dixon and his daughter Corinne Marie Foxx “cut it all off” and shielded Foxx from the outside world. “They didn’t want you to see me like that. And I didn’t want you to see me like that,” Foxx said, choking up. “I want you to see me like this.”
When he fully woke up, at a Chicago rehabilitation center on May 4, Foxx didn’t understand why he found himself in a wheelchair. And despite what he was being told, he could not wrap his head around the fact that he had a stroke. He told the audience about his long road to recovery and the reluctance to being bathed by a nurse — before she told him she had already been bathing him for weeks, he just couldn’t remember. “I couldn’t wipe my own ass,” Foxx said.
“I lost everything, but the only thing I could hold onto was my sense of humor,” Foxx said, before repeating a mantra of the comedy special: “If I could stay funny, I could stay alive.” The comedian then cycled through celebrity impressions, including Denzel Washington, Dave Chappelle, Mike Tyson, Jay-Z and Donald Trump.
He said during the first 15 days of his hospitalization, the doctors thought he would die because his vitals were too high, and he needed to be kept calm. “You know what [is] the worst thing to have when you’re trying to stay calm in the hospital room? Black family members,” Foxx joked before imitating his panicked kin.
Foxx said he didn’t want his youngest daughter, 14-year-old Anelise Bishop to see him in that state. Nonetheless, she snuck into his hospital room with her guitar and started playing music, causing Foxx’s vitals to go down. “It was God in that guitar,” Foxx said, calling the incident a “miracle.” “That’s my spiritual defibrillator.”
Bishop then walked on stage donning a Rickenbacker electric guitar for a father-daughter duet that had the audience (and Foxx and Bishop) wiping away tears. “You had to make it because I always dreamed we would perform together on stage one day,” Bishop said.
Elsewhere in the special, Foxx discussed the internet conspiracy theories surrounding his medical emergencies (“Y’all motherfuckers really thought I was a clone”) and his spirituality (“God gave me a second chance”).
Foxx also showed a brief highlight reel of his most iconic characters and led the theater in dance and a singalong. The “Ray” and “Dreamgirls” star sat down at the piano to perform a gospel number and a rollicking song about why he’s done dating white women.
Ending things on a sweet note, Foxx offered his sincere thanks to everybody who prayed for his recovery, to his nurses and doctors, to his family, to God and to the city of Atlanta. As he shook the hands of the audience members in the front row, Foxx sang, “Thank you for my body. Thank you for my soul.”
English (US) ·