After much speculation, comedian Jamie Foxx has chosen to open up about his health scare on his own terms. Those terms look like a stand-up special on Netflix titled What Had Happened Was….During the special, the comedian shared that his April 2023 medical emergency was a brain bleed that led to a stroke.
A special revelation the 56-year-old also shared with viewers is that his daughter Anelise, 16, helped him through a turbulent time while he was at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta.
“They said at one point, the first 15 days, they thought they were going to lose me because my vitals were out of control,” Foxx recalled. “There was a 13 or 14 day period where they said, we’ve gotta keep him calm and we’ve given him every medication that they could. It’s not working, we gotta keep him calm because his vitals are so high we’re going to lose him.”
The They Cloned Tyrone actor then joked, “Do you know what the worst thing to have in a hospital room when you’re trying to keep calm? Black family members.” He then added “That’s when a miracle happened, and that miracle was working through my youngest daughter. She’s 14. I didn’t want her to see me like that but she snuck into my hospital room with her guitar and she said, ‘I know what my daddy needs … that’s my daddy.’ “
Foxx tearfully continued, “They said when she was playing, my vitals went down. The nurses at the nurses station were baffled. Like, ‘Wow what did they give him?’ They rushed into the room and she said, ‘Ssh. I got him.’ … Do you know what I found out? That God was in that guitar. That’s my spiritual defibrillator.”
The Soul actor then welcomed his youngest daughter onto the stage and the two shared a tearful hug before she began performing with her guitar.
“Play, play, play,” Foxx said to Anelise while crying. “Let them see your talent, shine Anelise, shine baby,” he added as Anelise also wiped away tears at the end of her performance.
Once the 16-year-old’s performance was over, Foxx turned to her and said, “Anelise, thank you so much for stepping up when all was lost.”
“You had to make it because I always dreamed that we’d perform together onstage one day,” Anelise responded before the pair performed a song about his health scare with Foxx rapping and singing and Anelise playing the guitar.
During the father-daughter duo, Foxx sang, “God don’t take me, my oldest daughter’s getting married, please let me walk her down the aisle.” The actor’s 30-year-old daughter Corinne married Joe Hooten in September and thankfully, Foxx got to walk her down the aisle. During their performance, a photo of that intangible moment popped up on the screen.
We are thankful our comedy legend is still here to tell his story and tell it his way.