Jamie Foxx Says He Had a 'Brain Bleed That Led to a Stroke' in New Netflix Special: 'I Don't Remember 20 Days'

12/10/2024 04:28 AM

The Academy Award winner recalled how a doctor told his sister they could "lose him" in his comedy event 'Jamie Foxx: What Had Happened Was ...'

Jamie Foxx has confirmed that he suffered a stroke that almost killed him.

The Academy Award winner, 56, revealed that the April 2023 medical emergency he suffered while on the Atlanta set of his Netflix movie Back in Action was a "brain bleed that led to a stroke" during his comedy special Jamie Foxx: What Had Happened Was ..., now streaming on Netflix.

As he recounted the incident, Foxx became emotional and wiped tears from his eyes as he told the audience, "Please, Lord, let me get through this."

"April 11, I was having a bad headache, and I asked my boy for a Aspirin. I realized quickly that when you're in a medical emergency, your boys don't know what the f--- to do," Foxx began, before adding, "Before I could get the Aspirin [clicks his fingers] I went out. I don't remember 20 days."

Foxx went on to explain that his friends took him to a doctor in Atlanta who gave him a cortisone shot and then "sent me home," but it was his sister Deidra Dixon who "knew something was wrong."

"What the f--- is that?" Foxx quipped. "I don't know if you can do Yelps for doctors, but that's half a star."

Related: Jamie Foxx Reveals the Daily Mantra He Lives by After Surviving 'Darkness' of His Health Emergency

The actor said Dixon drove him around Atlanta and came across Piedmont Hospital, which Foxx told the audience was "just 400 yards away" from where the special was filmed. "Ya'll saved my life just 400 yards away from here in Piedmont Hospital. They put me back together again," he said.

"She didn't know anything about Piedmont Hospital, but she had a hunch that some angels [were] in there," he added..

At Piedmont, Foxx said 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.

"If I don't go in his head right now, we're going to lose him," Foxx recalled his sister being told, adding that she "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 of being unconscious, adding, "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.' Or is that Puffy [Sean Combs]? I'm f----ing around." 

Foxx has otherwise remained mostly tight-lipped on what sent him to the hospital, sharing a few details in the past, like how he experienced a "bad headache" and "was gone for 20 days."

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Demecos Chambers, who attended an October taping of Foxx's special in Atlanta, told PEOPLE that the actor revealed during the show that he was "literally seconds and moments away from death" when he collapsed on April 11, 2023.

"It was just pure exhaustion. His body was just exhausted due to him getting up there in age, and his body just faltering out on him," Chambers recalled Foxx sharing onstage.

The actor was in Georgia at the time working on Back in Action with costars including Cameron Diaz and Glenn Close, but he did not collapse on the set of the film.

"When he passed out, he thought he was just out for a few moments," Chambers told PEOPLE. "He basically passed out in an elevator and he thought he woke up a couple hours later. Well, he was actually in a coma and didn't wake up until a few weeks later."

Chambers said that while Foxx — who's dad to daughters Corinne, 30, and Anelise, 16 — was in a coma, one of the girls would strum the guitar for him.

"She's playing one of their favorite songs or whatever on a daily basis. And he said that's the only thing that he could recall hearing in his sleep, and it brought him essentially out of his coma," Chambers explained.

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After he woke up, the Rayactor "went to a rehab facility and he talked about how his motor skills he had to start from day one," said Chambers.

In October, Foxx posted on Instagram about what it was like to share details of the emotional health scare onstage for the special.

"My heart and my soul is filled with nothing but pure joy" after he "had an opportunity to tell my side of the story" at the gig, he said.

"I have to thank you Atlanta you showed up and you showed out, I haven't been on stage in 18 years but I needed the stage and I needed an audience that was made up of nothing but pure love and that's what you were," he added in the post.

Jamie Foxx: What Had Happened Was… is streaming on Netflix