Jamie Foxx gives rare insights into his near-death experience

Jamie Foxx is reflecting on surviving a life-threatening brain bleed that led to a stroke in April 2023, suggesting he had some questions for God at the time.

“I was talking to him,” said the Oscar winner as he pointed toward the sky on a recent episode of Baby, This Is Keke Palmer.

“This is me, bro. I put the smiles on people’s faces. Why me? Look at all these bad people out here,” he revealed his question.

Foxx said that after his medical emergency, when he asked his loved ones what had happened to him, he was astonished to find out he had suffered a stroke.

“[I said,] ‘What are you talking about?’ I couldn’t make sense of it,’” he shared on the podcast episode. The actor called rehab “frustrating,” saying people told him, “You got a second chance.”

“I said, ‘Fuck the second chance! What was wrong with my first chance?’” Foxx recalled. “This doesn’t happen to anybody. How does it happen to me?”

The Django Unchained star then cracked that his health care team couldn’t do wellness checks on him because he was constantly telling jokes, noting that he “only had comedy to lean on” during the challenging time.

“So, I was just funny. I was always joking all the time. So, when they [would] come and say, ‘Who are you today, sir?’ I was somebody different [everyday]. ‘Who are you today?’” Foxx recalled before doing an impression of fellow comedian Dave Chappelle.

Foxx also revealed that one nurse told him that his survival was a miracle.

“I said, ‘What you mean?’ She said, ‘Less than 3% of people that come in with what you have walk out of here. We usually put them in a box.’”

In April 2023, Foxx was hospitalized after he suffered what was then vaguely described as a “medical complication.”

Foxx told a group of people in downtown Phoenix in summer 2024 that his health issues began with a “bad headache.”

“Look, April 11 last year, bad headache, asked my boy for an Advil. I was gone for 20 days,” he said in a clip shared on X. “I don’t remember anything. I’m in Atlanta, they told me … my sister and my daughter took me to the first doctor. They gave me a cortisone shot.”

“The next doctor said, ‘There’s something going on up there,’” Jamie Foxx added at that time while pointing to his head.