Jamie Foxx Netflix Special Reveals He Had a Brain Bleed and Stroke

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.

Appearing on stage and proclaiming, “I’m back!” As he danced and pumped up the crowd, Foxx said his life was saved just a quarter-mile from the Atlanta theater at Piedmont Hospital.

The Oscar and Grammy winner fought back tears as he discussed his “mysterious illness,” saying, “Please Lord, let me get through this.”

“On April 11, I had a severe headache and I asked my son for aspirin. I quickly realized that when you have a medical emergency, your guys don’t know what to do,” Foxx joked.

He said that 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 hell is that?” Foxx joked. “I don’t know if you can do Yelps for doctors, but that’s half a star.”

His sister Deidra Dixon, whom he described as “four feet tall of nothing but pure love,” knew Foxx was experiencing something much more serious. “She says, ‘Put him in the car.’ That’s not my brother right there,” Foxx said. “She was driving around — she didn’t know anything about Piedmont Hospital, but she had a hunch there were angels there [were] in it.”

In Piedmont, a doctor told Dixon that Foxx had “a brain hemorrhage that led to a stroke,” and that if they didn’t operate on him as soon as possible, he would die. “My sister knelt outside the operating room and prayed the whole time,” Foxx said.

He said it was “kind of strangely peaceful” to be unconscious, adding: “I saw the tunnel. I haven’t seen the light.” Foxx then joked, “It was hot in that tunnel. 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 and I said, ‘Come on.’ Or is that Puffie [Sean Combs]?”

After the procedure, the doctor told Dixon that Foxx “may make a full recovery, but this would be the worst year of his life.” Foxx agreed: “It was.”

As he began his recovery process, Foxx said Dixon and his daughter Corinne Marie Foxx had “cut everything 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 choked out. “I want you to see me like this.”

When he woke up fully on May 4 at a rehabilitation center in Chicago, Foxx didn’t understand why he ended up in a wheelchair. And despite what he was told, he couldn’t ignore the fact that he had had a stroke. He told the audience about his long road to recovery and his reluctance to be washed by a nurse. Before she told him that she had been washing 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 on to was my sense of humor,” Foxx said, before repeating a mantra from the comedy special: “If I could stay funny, I could stay alive.” The comedian then cycled through impressions of celebrities including Denzel Washington, Dave Chappelle, Mike Tyson, Jay-Z and Donald Trump.

He said that during the first 15 days of his hospitalization, doctors thought he was going to die because his vital signs were too high and he had to be kept calm. ‘You know what [is] the worst thing you can have while trying to stay calm in the hospital room? Black relatives,” Foxx joked before imitating his panicked relatives.

Foxx said he didn’t want his youngest daughter, 14-year-old Anelise Bishop, to see him in that state. Nevertheless, she snuck into his hospital room with her guitar and started playing music, causing Foxx’s vital signs to fail. “It was God in that guitar,” Foxx said, calling the incident a “miracle.” “That’s my spiritual defibrillator.”

Bishop then walked onstage with an electric Rickenbacker 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 that one day we would perform on stage together,” Bishop said.

Elsewhere in the special, Foxx discussed the Internet conspiracy theories surrounding his medical emergencies (“You motherfuckers really thought I was a clone”) and his spirituality (“God gave me a second chance”).

Foxx also showed a short highlight reel of his most iconic characters and led the theater in dancing and singing along. The star of ‘Ray’ and ‘Dreamgirls’ sat down at the piano to perform a gospel song and a compelling song about why he’s done dating white women.

Foxx wrapped things up on a sweet note, expressing his heartfelt gratitude to everyone who prayed for his recovery, to his nurses and doctors, to his family, to God and to the city of Atlanta. As he shook hands with audience members in the front row, Foxx sang, “Thank you for my body. Thank you for my soul.”