Oscar-winning actor, Jamie Foxx, has opened up about the serious medical emergency he experienced last year, revealing in a Netflix special that he suffered a brain bleed that led to a stroke.
The special, titled Jamie Foxx: What Had Happened Was, was released on Tuesday and gives insight into the Hollywood star’s health struggles.
“It is a mystery,” Foxx admitted in the special. “We still don’t know exactly what happened to me.”
Recounting the events of April 11, Foxx shared how it all began. “I was having a bad headache and I asked my boy for an aspirin. And I realized quickly that when you’re in a medical emergency, your boys don’t know what the f**k to do,” he said. “Before I could get the aspirin I went out. I don’t remember 20 days.”
He expressed immense gratitude for his sister, describing her as “4 foot 11 of nothing but pure love,” for driving him across Atlanta in search of a hospital.
The journey ended at Piedmont Hospital, where doctors delivered a dire prognosis.
“They told us I was having a brain bleed that had led to a stroke and that I would die without an operation,” Foxx revealed.
The surgery saved his life, but the road to recovery was daunting. Doctors warned Foxx that while he might make a full recovery, it would be the toughest year of his life.
The actor recalled how his family shielded him from public view during his most vulnerable moments, especially because his condition left him so dizzy that his head would bob uncontrollably.
His daughter feared people would turn his situation into an internet meme.
Foxx remembered waking up on May 4 in a wheelchair, shocked when a friend informed him of the stroke. “Jamie Foxx don’t get strokes,” he recalled saying in disbelief.
His rehabilitation journey took him to Chicago, where medical professionals urged him to set aside any arrogance if he hoped to fully recover.
The actor’s health scare occurred while he was filming a Netflix project in Atlanta in April 2023. At the time, his daughter, Corinne Foxx, had described the situation as a “medical complication,” while those close to him maintained his privacy.
In July 2023, Foxx addressed speculation in an Instagram video, though he avoided revealing specifics about his ordeal.
“I know a lot of people were waiting or wanting to hear updates, but to be honest with you, I just didn’t want you to see me like that, man,” he shared. “I want you to see me laughing, having a good time, partying, cracking a joke, doing a movie, television show. I didn’t want you to see me with tubes running out of me and trying to figure out if I was gonna make it through.”
By August 2023, Foxx provided another health update on social media, writing, “You’re looking at a man who is thankful… finally startin’ to feel like myself… It’s been an unexpected dark journey… but I can see the light.”
Later that summer, in a TikTok video, Foxx told a crowd of supporters that it all began with a “bad headache” and that he was “gone for 20 days.” In the video, he shared, “I did not remember anything.”
