• Jamie Foxx opened up about his April 2023 medical emergency in his new Netflix comedy special Jamie Foxx: What happened was…
• The Oscar winner revealed how a doctor in Atlanta told his sister Deidra Dixon that he had “suffered a brain bleed that led to a stroke” and that he would die if they didn’t operate on him as quickly as possible
• Foxx also recalled how he “woke up” and “found himself in a wheelchair” on May 4, 2023.

Jamie Foxx has confirmed he suffered a stroke that almost killed him.

The 56-year-old Oscar winner revealed that he suffered a medical emergency on the set of his Netflix film in Atlanta in April 2023 Back in action was a “cerebral hemorrhage that led to a stroke” during his comedy special. Jamie Foxx: What happened was…now streaming on Netflix.

As he recounted the incident, Foxx became emotional, wiping tears from his eyes as he told the audience, “Please, Lord, let me get through this.”

“On April 11, I had a bad headache and asked my boy for an aspirin. “I quickly realized that in a medical emergency, your guys don’t know what the hell to do,” Foxx began, adding, “Before I could get the aspirin (snaps fingers), I walked out.” I don’t remember 20 days.

Foxx further explained that his friends took him to a doctor in Atlanta who gave him a cortisone shot and then “sent me home,” but it was his sister Deidra Dixon who “knew something was wrong.”

“What the hell is that?” Foxx joked. “I don’t know if you can make Yelps for doctors, but that’s half a star.”

The actor said Dixon drove him around Atlanta and came across Piedmont Hospital, which Foxx told the audience was “just a quarter mile” from where the special was filmed. “You will have saved my life just 400 meters from here at Piedmont Hospital. They put me back together,” he said.

“She didn’t know anything about Piedmont Hospital, but she had an inkling there were some angels there,” he added.

At Piedmont, Foxx said a doctor told Dixon “some terrible news about her big brother. He said, ‘He’s had a brain bleed that’s resulted in a stroke,'” and that if they didn’t operate on him as quickly as possible he would die.

“If I don’t get into his head now, we’re going to lose him,” Foxx recalled telling his sister, adding that she was “kneeling outside the operating room and praying the whole time.”

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“Your life doesn’t flash before your face. It was kind of strangely peaceful,” Foxx said of his unconsciousness, adding, “I saw the tunnel. I didn’t see the light. However, I was in that tunnel. It was hot in this tunnel. S—, am I going in the wrong place in this mother——? ‘Cause I looked at the end of the tunnel and thought I saw the devil saying, ‘Come on.'”

The singer went on to say that the doctor told his sister about his medical emergency: “We haven’t figured out where it’s coming from, but he’s having a stroke. He may be able to make a full recovery, but that’s how it will be.” “The worst year of his life.” That’s it, Atlanta. You finally got the story.

He also became emotional remembering that he was in a wheelchair. “I don’t remember 20 days, but on May 4th I woke up (clicks fingers) and when I woke up I was in a wheelchair. I couldn’t walk in a wheelchair and thought, “Why the hell am I in a wheelchair?” I’m just coming out of sleep.

Foxx then recounted how his friend Dave told him he had suffered a stroke, saying, “‘And don’t try to get out of that chair because you can’t walk.’ ”

The star then recreated trying to get out of the wheelchair on stage, but admitted he couldn’t and told his friend it must be “a terrible joke”. “Jamie Foxx doesn’t get strokes,” he added.

Then he tearfully recalled how he had said: “Stop this damn prank.”

Otherwise, Foxx has remained largely tight-lipped about why he had to go to the hospital, sharing a few details in the past, such as that he had a “severe headache” and was “gone for 20 days.”

Demecos Chambers, who attended a taping of the Foxx special in Atlanta in October, told PEOPLE that the actor revealed during the show that he was “literally seconds and moments away from death” when he collapsed on April 11, 2023 .

“It was just pure exhaustion. “His body was just worn out because of age and his body was just failing,” Chambers recalled as Foxx recounted this onstage.

The actor was in Georgia working at the time Back in action with co-stars like Cameron Diaz and Glenn Close, but he didn’t collapse on the film’s set.

“When he passed out, he thought he was just unconscious for a few moments,” Chambers told PEOPLE. “He practically passed out in the elevator and thought he would wake up a few hours later. Well, he was actually in a coma and didn’t wake up until a few weeks later.”

Chambers said that while Foxx – the father of daughters Corinne, 30, and Anelise, 16 – was in a coma, one of the girls would play guitar for him.

“She plays one of her favorite songs or whatever every day. And he said that was the only thing he could remember hearing in his sleep and it basically brought him out of a coma,” Chambers explained.

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After he woke up, the Ray The actor “went into a rehab facility and talked about how he needed to improve his motor skills from day one,” Chambers said.

In October, Foxx posted on Instagram what it was like sharing details about the emotional health crisis onstage for the special.

“My heart and soul are filled with nothing but pure joy” after “having the opportunity to tell my side of the story” at the performance, he said.

“I have to thank you, Atlanta, for showing up and showing yourself. “I haven’t been on stage in 18 years, but I needed the stage and I needed an audience that was nothing but pure love and that was you,” he added in the post.

Jamie Foxx: What happened was… is streaming on Netflix