Jamie Foxx Opens Up About Stroke Recovery and His “Second Chance”

Jamie Foxx is speaking openly about the stroke that nearly killed him in 2023 and the difficult recovery that followed.

Appearing on Baby, This Is Keke Palmer, Foxx said he struggled to understand why the medical crisis happened to him. “Why me?” he recalled asking God. During rehabilitation, he said he became frustrated when doctors told him he had been given a “second chance.”

“I said, ‘F— the second chance. What was wrong with my first chance?’” Foxx said.

Foxx, 58, also said comedy helped him cope during his recovery. When medical staff tried to check his condition, he often responded by doing impressions of other people.

His daughter, Corinne Foxx, recalled that when he was first admitted to the hospital, he impersonated actor Denzel Washington. She said medical staff were unsure whether Foxx was joking or whether something was wrong with him.

Foxx said humor was his way of finding himself during a frightening period. He later returned to the Atlanta hospital where he was treated to meet the nurses who cared for him.

One nurse told him that fewer than 3% of patients who arrived with his condition survived, Foxx recalled. She called him a “miracle.”

Foxx previously discussed the experience in his 2024 Netflix comedy special, What Had Happened Was. He said performing the material was emotionally difficult because he had to revisit the experience repeatedly.