Since Jamie Foxx's hospitalization in April 2023 for undisclosed reasons, the Oscar-winning actor, singer, and comedian has remained largely out of the spotlight, leaving his medical condition shrouded in mystery. But in his new Netflix special, What Had Happened Was (now streaming on Netflix), Foxx reveals the harrowing details of the debilitating stroke that left him on the edge of death — and his arduous road to recovery.
“I was fighting for my life, but I'm here right in front of you,” a tearful Foxx tells a cheering Atlanta crowd after being introduced by his daughter, actress Corinne Foxx. “If I dance all night, don't mind me. I'm happy to be alive.”
Foxx explains that he wanted to film the special in Atlanta because it's where he got started doing stand-up and because the doctors and nurses of Piedmont Atlanta Hospital were the first to care for him after his stroke. At the time, Foxx was in Atlanta filming his upcoming Netflix movie Back in Action co-starring Cameron Diaz.
“Atlanta saved my life,” he repeats to the audience throughout the special, which has already been nominated for a Golden Globe Award in the Best Performance in Stand-Up Comedy on Television category.
Here are key takeaways from the performance:
His “mystery illness” started with a headache.
On April 11, 2023, Foxx was hit with a bad headache and asked a friend for an aspirin. But before he was able to take it, he says he “went out.” He doesn't remember the following 20 days, but Foxx says he was told by friends and family members that the first doctor he saw gave him a cortisone shot and sent him home. When his sister, Deidra Dixon, went to visit him she insisted he get further medical care because something didn't seem right.
Dixon drove him to Piedmont Hospital, where another doctor speculated Foxx was having a brain bleed that led to a stroke. The doctor operated on Foxx in what the actor says was a near-death experience. “He may be able to make a full recovery, but it's gonna be the worst year of his life,” Foxx tearfully recounts the doctor telling his sister.
When Foxx woke up 20 days later, he was in a rehabilitation center in Chicago and was confused to find himself in a wheelchair.
Foxx initially refused to participate in therapy to get better.
In an emotional retelling, Foxx remembers being dizzy, frustrated, and stubbornly resistant to both physical and mental therapy. “I'm Jamie Foxx. I don't need anything. I don't want to see no therapist,” he says. “They say, 'You got a second chance.' I don't want a second chance. What's wrong with my first chance?”
Eventually, Foxx says, the rehab center sent in a nurse named Holly who pushed him to get out of bed and gain perspective on his situation. She reminded him that while he had the chance to get better, there were people who weren't going to make it out of the facility he was in.
PARRISH LEWIS/NETFLIX
Foxx's sense of humor is well intact.
Throughout his time in rehab, Foxx says he made jokes with the nurses and his other visitors, telling himself, “If I can stay funny, I can stay alive.”
While he sheds plenty of tears as he speaks candidly about his health crisis, Foxx also leans into his comedy roots with impressions of Wesley Snipes, Dave Chappelle, Jay-Z, Mike Tyson, and even Donald Trump. Withing the first few minutes of the special, he also nods to the sexual assault, harassment, and sex trafficking allegation against Sean Combs.
“The internet said Puffy tried to kill me. I know what you're thinking: 'Did he?'” Foxx says. “Hell no, I left them parties early. I was out by nine. 'Something don't look right. It's slippery in here'” (a reference to the more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil that were found in Diddy's home raid as a part of Homeland Security's investigation).
He returns to Diddy later in the special as he describes his “oddly peaceful” near-death experience: “I saw the tunnel. I didn't see the light, I was in a tunnel, though. It was hot in that tunnel. [I thought]'Shit am I going to the wrong place in this motherfucker?' 'Cause I looked at the end of the tunnel and I thought I saw the devil. Or was that Puffy?”
Foxx celebrates how his family “held me the fuck down” during this scary moment in his life.
While he was experiencing his stroke, memory loss, and subsequent recovery, Foxx says he was absent from the spotlight because his sister and his older daughter tried their best to keep him out of the public eye. “They didn't want you to see me like that, and I didn't want you to see me like that,” he explains. “I wanted you to see me like this.” The comedian is brought to tears explaining that he doesn't have to wonder who will be by his side during the worst of times, because he's lived through it.
Before leaving the stage, Foxx also brings out his younger daughter, 14-year-old Anelise Bishop, who plays her guitar for the audience. Foxx says he was told that for the first 15 days following his stroke, his vitals were “out of control” and things were very “touch and go.” But when Bishop snuck into his hospital room and played her guitar, the nurses were “baffled” to see his vitals go down. “You know what I found out? It was God in that guitar,” he says. “That's my spiritual defibrillator.”
Bishop strums along while Foxx performs a conversation he had with God during this tumultuous time. After she finishes her song, Foxx takes a seat at a piano to take the audience through a long list of his accomplishments, including a performance of his Grammy-nominated song “Slow Jamz.”
We still don't really know everything about what had happened to Jamie Foxx.
While Foxx addresses his stroke and the severity of his medical condition, some details remain opaque. While Foxx says he was “gone for 20 days” throughout the health crisis, it's not entirely clear whether he lost consciousness during the experience, fell into a coma, suffered amnesia, or something else entirely.
