Jamie Foxx Reveals That A Brain Bleed Caused A Stroke That Nearly Killed Him in Netflix Special

Jamie Foxx details the April 2023 medical emergency that nearly killed him in his new comedy special now streaming on Netflix.

Foxx, 56, confirms he suffered "a brain bleed that led to a stroke" in his special, "Jamie Foxx: What Had Happened Was..."

The Academy Award winner was in Atlanta on the set of his upcoming Netflix movie, "Back in Action," when he got a headache.

"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 said. "Before I could get the aspirin [snaps his fingers] I went out. I don't remember 20 days."

Friends initially took Foxx to a local doctor who administered a cortisone shot and sent him home, but his sister Deidra Dixon "knew something was wrong."

"What the f*** is that?" Foxx said of the first doctor's treatment. "I don't know if you can do Yelps for doctors, but that's half a star."

Foxx said Dixon drove him around the city until she found Piedmont Hospital, "just 400 yards away" from where he filmed the comedy special.

"Y'all 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."

At the hospital, a doctor told Dixon that Foxx was experiencing a brain bleed that led to a stroke, and that he could die without emergency surgery.

"If I don't go in his head right now, we're going to lose him," Foxx said the doctor told his sister, who "knelt down outside the operating room and prayed the whole time."

Foxx described the feeling, saying that his life didn't flash before his eyes, but he did see "the tunnel."

"Your life doesn't flash before your face. It was kind of oddly peaceful," Foxx said. "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.'"

After the operation, the doctor told Dixon that surgeons "didn't find where it was coming from, but he is having a stroke." The doctor said Foxx "may be able to make a full recovery but it's going to be he worst year of his life."

Foxx said he awoke from the ordeal only to learn he was in a wheelchair and unable to walk.

"Twenty days I don't remember, but on May 4 I woke up [snaps fingers], and when I woke up I found myself in a wheelchair. I couldn't walk, in a wheelchair, and I was like, 'Why the f--- am I in a wheelchair?' I'm just coming out of s***."

When his friend told him he had a stroke, he warned Foxx not to try to get up out of the wheelchair, because he couldn't walk. Foxx said he initially believed it was all "a horrible joke."

"Stop this f---ing prank," he recalled saying, tearing up. "Jamie Foxx don't get strokes."

After the ordeal, Foxx entered a rehab facility to regain his motor skills after the stroke. He kept the details private for more than a year, only sharing that he had a medical emergency and "was gone for 20 days."

In December of 2023, he made his first public appearance since the stroke to accept the Vanguard Award at the Critics Choice Association's Celebration of Cinema and Television: Honoring Black, Latino and AAPI Achievements. He walked across the stage before giving an emotional speech.

"I couldn't do that six months ago, I couldn't actually walk to [the stage]. And I'm not a clone, I'm not a clone," he joked, referencing his movie "They Cloned Tyrone."

"I cherish every single minute now," he said.

-- With reporting by TMX

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Jamie Foxx, Netflix