Hollywood superstar Jamie Foxx believes his daughter Anelise’s guitar playing saved his life after a bleed on the brain led him to suffer a stroke.
The Academy Award-winning actor, 56, whose real name is Eric Bishop, was hospitalised in April 2023 after suffering a mystery “medical complication”.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Jamie Foxx speaks out for the first time on medical emergency.
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At the time, his family decided to keep the situation private, but he has now detailed his health ordeal in the Netflix special Jamie Foxx: What Had Happened Was …
The 56-year-old comedian — who has Anelise, 16, with his ex Kristin Grannis — revealed that staff at Atlanta’s Piedmont Hospital thought they were going to “lose” him in the first 13 to 15 days of his hospitalisation as his “vitals” were all over the place.
However they started going “down” when the teenager started strumming the instrument at her father’s bedside.
“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’,” Foxx says in the special.
He quipped: “Do you know what the worst thing to have in a hospital room when you’re trying to keep calm? Black family members.”
The devout Christian said he believes God “was in that guitar” and that it acted as his “spiritual defibrillator”.
He went on: “That’s when a miracle happened, and that miracle was working through my youngest daughter. She was 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.’”
He said: “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.”
Foxx — who also has 30-year-old daughter Corinne with Connie Kline — welcomed Anelise onstage in the special to perform a moving piece on the guitar with her parent.
An emotional Foxx declared: “Play, play, play.”
He continued: “Let them see your talent, shine Anelise, shine baby.”
Foxx told her: “Anelise, thank you so much for stepping up when all was lost.”
Both wiping away their tears, Anelise told her dad: “You had to make it because I always dreamed that we’d perform together onstage one day.”
In the tear-jerking song about the medical emergency, Foxx rapped and sang: “God don’t take me, my oldest daughter’s getting married, please let me walk her down the aisle.”
Foxx was well enough to walk his eldest girl down the aisle in September, when the actress tied the knot with Joe Hooten.
The news of Foxx’s “mystery illness”, as he referred to it in the special, first broke in April 2023, when his daughter Corinne Fox shared a statement announcing her father had been hospitalised after experiencing a “medical complication.”
It was later revealed his condition was serious enough that family had travelled to be by his bedside.
Since then, the Oscar winner has sporadically shared some details, including that he had suffered from a bad headache prior to the incident and didn’t remember 20 days of his life.
In the special, he went into detail about what he did remember from that time period, found humor in his recovery and explained how he wouldn’t have gotten through it without his family, including his daughters, Corinne Foxx and Anelise Bishop, and his sister Deidra Dixon.
What was Jamie Foxx’s illness?
In his new Netflix special, Jamie Foxx revealed that he experienced “a brain bleed that led to a stroke”.
He said that on April 11, 2023, he began experiencing a bad headache and asked a friend for an aspirin. At the time, he was working on the film Back in Action alongside Glenn Close and Cameron Diaz, which will be released on Netflix in January 2025.
The initial headache began a harrowing time for Foxx.
“I don’t remember 20 days,” he said in the special.
Once in the hospital, doctors performed surgery on Foxx almost immediately. While they couldn’t find the original source of the brain bleed, they believed it would be possible for him to make a full recovery, though they told his sister it would be difficult.
The cause of the medical emergency is still unknown, according to Foxx.
“It is a mystery,” he said early in the special.
“We still don’t know exactly what happened to me. All I can tell you is that I appreciate every prayer, because I needed every prayer.”
Foxx said he woke up on May 4 in a wheelchair and then was flown to Chicago to do his rehabilitation.
Foxx’s first update following his ordeal came in July 2023, when he spoke about his hospitalisation in an emotional Instagram video.
“I cannot even begin to tell you how far it took me and how it brought me back,” he said in the video.
“I went through something that I thought I would never ever go through. 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.”
He shared another update on Instagram a month later.
“You’re lookin’ at a man who is thankful … finally startin’ to feel like myself … it’s been an unexpected dark journey … but I can see the light,” he wrote.
What is a brain bleed?
A brain bleed, also known as an intracranial haemorrhage, is a type of stroke, according to the Cleveland Clinic. The blood pools between the brain and the skull and prevents oxygen from getting to the brain. The condition can be fatal and requires fast treatment.
Common symptoms, according to Cleveland Clinic, include:
- Sudden tingling, weakness, numbness in the face, arm or leg, especially on one side of the body
- Sudden, severe headache, also known as a thunderclap headache
- Nausea and vomiting
- Confusion and dizziness
- Slurred speech
- Lethargy
– With NBC