The actor revealed that the medical event left him unable to recall 20 days of his life.
Jamie Foxx is finally opening up about what led to his hospitalization in April of 2023. The actor detailed the terrifying story behind his time away from the spotlight in his new Netflix special, Jamie Foxx: What Had Happened Was…,and revealed that a headache led to him developing a stroke that changed the course of his life.
In the December 10-released special, Foxx got candid with members in the audience and referred to the health scare as a “mystery illness.” The comedian’s symptoms first started off with a headache but then developed into “a brain bleed that led to a stroke.”
Foxx’s sister, Deidre Dixon took him to the hospital—he explained she drove “aimlessly” around Atlanta until she found the hospital where he would later be treated and receive emergency surgery. “What’s interesting was as she drove around, she didn’t know anything about Piedmont Hospital, but she had a hunch that some angels were sending her,” Foxx explained. “Because she said that’s we we’re going to need.”
Dixon than stumbled upon a "cool doctor" at the hospital who said Foxx was "having a brain bleed that has led to a stroke, and if I don't go into his head right now, we're going to lose him," to which Dixon replied, "‘You can go in his head, but you’re not going to find anything, because I already talked to God.’”
Upon performing surgery on Foxx, doctors were unable to figure out the source of the brain bleeding, and told his sister that he could make a full recovery—but it was going to be incredibly difficult. The stroke left Foxx unable to remember 20 days of his recovery process, and when he woke up on May 4 of last year, he was in a wheelchair and needed to learn how to walk again (he later did rehabilitation in Chicago). “It is a mystery,” he said in the special. “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.”
"I appreciate every well wish, Atlanta. To the world, I can’t thank you enough," Foxx continued. "Even when I see people on the street and they roll the window down and yell out, 'Man, we're glad you're here,' as I look out and I see my family and I see my friends, I can’t tell you how good it feels…It feels amazing."