Jamie Foxx Details Terrifying ‘Mystery Illness’ in Netflix Special: ‘I Don’t Remember 20 Days’

As promised, Jamie Foxx is opening up about the health scare that led to his hospitalization in 2023. In his new Netflix special, Jamie Foxx: What Had Happened Was…, Foxx details the brain bleed that led to him going off-the-radar for much of the past two years due after an April 2023 health emergency that led to the Oscar-winner’s hospitalization.

“You have no idea how good this feels. Atlanta, I’m back,” Foxx says tearily in the special that dropped on Tuesday (Dec. 10), according to The Hollywood Reporter. “I was fighting for my life, but I’m here in front of you.” The emotional return to the stage — which has already picked up an early 2025 Golden Globe nomination for best performance in stand-up comedy on television — is described as a mixture of “laughter, music and sobering truth,” as Foxx gets candid with the crowd about his rehab and recovery.

The special was filmed in Atlanta, which is where Foxx was when he became ill while filming his on-screen reunion with Cameron Diaz in the upcoming Netflix comedy Back in Action. It opens with a montage of videos of fans speculation about what happened to Foxx, with his daughter Corinne coming out first to thank the audience. “This is a special moment for me and my family. It is a blessing to even be here,” she says.

Foxx is emotional at first, wiping away tears, before diving into the red-hot internet rumor mill that revved up after his hospitalization, which was stoked by the lack of accurate information on what had befallen the 56-year-old star. “The internet tried to kill me, though,” he says. “They said I was paralyzed. They said I couldn’t walk. Well, look at me now.”

The tone then reportedly gets serious, as Foxx says that his team still doesn’t know exactly what happened to him on April 11, 2023, explaining that it all began as a very bad headache. “I don’t remember 20 days,” he says, noting that the first doctor he saw dismissed his symptoms, though his sister, Deidra Dixon, sensed something was seriously wrong and drove him around looking for a hospital to treat her brother; that hospital, Piedmont Hospital, is just around the corner from the Atlanta theater where the special was filmed.

A doctor there realized Foxx was having a “brain bleed” that led to a stroke and needed immediate surgery. He recalls that the doctor told Dixon that it was possible the actor would make a full recovery from the stroke, but that he was facing the “worst year of his life.” Foxx says that’s why he retreated from the public, remembering that he woke up on May 4 in a wheelchair with no recollection of what had happened.

“I saw the tunnel. I didn’t see the light,” Foxx says in the special. “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 [Combs]?”

Foxx says it was hard to accept the diagnosis at first, but that a psychiatrist helped him focus, which led to what he describes as a deep conversation with God that helped him fight hard to recover by leaning into his humor. He says that his mantra became: “If I can stay funny, I can stay alive.” He also thanks his daughter Corinne for cutting off all access to him during that time, saying his family “didn’t want you to see me like that. And I didn’t want you to see me like that… I want you to see me like this.”

Though he was afraid during the first two weeks of hospitalization that he would die, Foxx gives 14-year-old daughter Anelise credit for sneaking into his hospital room and playing her guitar, a scene she recreates in the special. Jamie Foxx: What Had Happened Was… is streaming on Netflix now.