Jamie Foxx recently opened up about a serious health scare he faced last year, sharing that he suffered a brain bleed that resulted in a stroke.
In his Netflix special, “Jamie Foxx: What Had Happened Was,” released on Tuesday, Foxx opened up about his health struggles from the past year. “It is a mystery,” he said. “We still don’t know exactly what happened to me. April 11, 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,” he said. “I don’t remember 20 days.”
He gave a heartfelt shoutout to his sister, who he affectionately described as “4 foot 11 of nothing but pure love,” for helping him navigate Atlanta in search of a hospital. They landed at Piedmont Hospital, where doctors broke the shocking news: Foxx was experiencing a brain bleed that had triggered a stroke, and without immediate surgery, his life was at stake.
Post-surgery, medical professionals told Foxx that while he could potentially make a full recovery, he was in for “the worst year of his life,” he recalled. His family kept him out of the spotlight because he was “so dizzy” that he couldn’t keep his head steady. His daughter was especially worried that if people saw him in that condition, they might turn him into an internet meme.
On May 4, he woke up in a wheelchair, completely stunned to learn from a friend that he had suffered a stroke. After that, he was flown to Chicago for rehab, where he was advised to drop any “arrogant” attitudes if he wanted to fully bounce back.
Foxx had initially been hospitalized in April 2023 while filming a Netflix project in Atlanta, following what was then an undisclosed health crisis. By July 2023, he took to Instagram to address the swirling rumors about his hospitalization, although he kept the specifics under wraps.
“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 said in the video. “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.”