Jamie Foxx Reveals Details of His 2023 Medical Emergency

Jamie Foxx is opening up about his April 2023 medical emergency. In his new Netflix comedy special Jamie Foxx: What Had Happened Was…, released Dec. 10, the Academy Award winner, 56, grew emotional as he revealed that he suffered “a brain bleed that led to a stroke” that left him fighting for his life in a hospital and unable to remember a 20-day period from April to May 2023.

“Please, Lord, let me get through this,” the actor said as he discussed his “mystery illness.” He went on to state that while on the Atlanta set of his Netflix movie Back in Action on April 11, 2023, he “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 f– to do. Before I could get the aspirin [clicks his fingers] I went out.”

Fox, who was left fighting for his life in a hospital, said he was unable to remember a 20-day period from April to May 2023. He “woke up” on May 4 in a wheelchair and was told that his friends took him to a doctor in Atlanta who gave him a cortisone shot and then “sent me home.”

“What the f– is that?” he said. “I don’t know if you can do Yelps for doctors, but that’s half a star.”

Still concerned for his health and fearing that something was wrong as the actor remained “lethargic,” Foxx’s younger sister Deidra Dixon drove “aimlessly” around Atlanta with the Django Unchained star until she came across Piedmont Hospital. Foxx said his sister, who he described as “4-foot-11 of nothing but pure love,” didn’t “know anything about Piedmont Hospital, but she had a hunch that some angels [were] in there.”

It was there that a doctor told Dixon “some horrible news about her big brother. He said, ‘He’s 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. Foxx was rushed into surgery as his sister “knelt down outside the operating room and prayed the whole time.”

“Your life doesn’t flash before your face. It was kind of oddly peaceful,” Foxx said. “I saw the tunnel. I didn’t see the light. I was in that tunnel, though. It was hot in that tunnel. S—, am I going to the wrong place in this mother——? Because I looked at the end of the tunnel, and I thought I saw the devil like, ‘Come on.’ “

After his surgery, doctors told Foxx’s sister that they were unable to find where the brain breed came from and that he “may be able to make a full recovery, but it’s going to be the worst year of his life.” Foxx said, “That’s what it was.”

Foxx woke up on May 4, 2023 and discovered he was in a wheelchair, recalling, “I couldn’t walk, in a wheelchair, and I was like, ‘Why the f– am I in a wheelchair?’” He said he struggled to accept his condition and was reluctant be bathed by the nurses during his recovery.

“I lost everything, but the only thing I could hold onto was my sense of humor,” he said.

Foxx credited his sister and his daughters, Corinne Foxx and Anelise Bishop, for helping him throughout his recovery, telling the audience, “My daughter didn’t want nobody to see me because I was dizzy from the stroke. So my head would do this (shakes head).”

He explained that the cause of the medical emergency “is a mystery. We still don’t know exactly what happened to me. All I can tell you is that I appreciate every prayer, because I needed every prayer.”

Jamie Foxx: What Had Happened Was… was filmed in October during a three-show stint in Atlanta. The special is now streaming on Netflix.