Jamie Foxx Explains How He Nearly Died

During an emotional part of his new Netflix special, “What Had Happened Was…,” Jamie Foxx told a live audience what happened in 2023 when he nearly died. 

It all started, the comedian/actor explained, when he had a headache and asked for aspirin. It was a simple ask. Routine. 

What followed was 20 days of hell. 

“I realized quickly that when you’re in a medical emergency, your boys don’t know what the f–k to do,” Foxx told the Atlanta audience. The Netflix special was recorded just 400 yards from Piedmont Hospital where he was saved. “I don’t remember 20 days.” 

Doctors told Foxx, 56, that he had a brain bleed that led to a stroke. 

Before he could take the aspirin, Foxx blacked out and was rushed to a doctor in Atlanta who gave him a cortisone shot and told him to go home. It didn’t work. Foxx says his sister, Deidra Dixon, knew something wasn’t right. 

“She says, ‘Get him in the car. That ain’t my brother right there,'” Foxx continued during the Netflix special. “She drove around — she didn’t know anything about Piedmont Hospital, but she had a hunch that some angels [were] in there.”

Piedmont determined the brain bleed would require immediate surgery. 

“I saw the tunnel. I didn’t see the light.” Foxx told the audience. “It was hot in that tunnel. S–t, am I going to the wrong place in this motherf–ker? Because I looked at the end of the tunnel, and I thought I saw the Devil like, ‘C’mon.’ Or is that Puffy?”

20 days later, Foxx woke up in a rehab facility. 

“I was like, ‘Why the f–k am i in a wheelchair?’ I’m just coming out of s–t,” he recalled, while adding that it felt “like a f–king prank.”