Jamie Foxx Recalls Mystery Illness, Being “Gone For 20 Days” During Hospitalization

Jamie Foxx reflects on his mystery illness. Getty Images

More than a year later, Jamie Foxx is getting candid about his mysterious health scare that apparently left him comatose for three weeks.

The Academy Award winner shared the story of his April 2023 illness with a group of people on the streets of downtown Phoenix, Arizona in a video shared Monday on social media.

“April 11 last year, [I had] a bad headache, asked my boy for an Advil,” Foxx began in the clip, snapping his fingers. “I was gone for 20 days. I don’t remember anything.”

Jamie was hospitalized last April following an undisclosed “medical complication” on the Atlanta set of his upcoming Netflix movie Back in Action with Cameron Diaz. His daughter Corrine Foxx announced the illness on Instagram the next day, noting that he was “already on his way to recovery.”

Jamie Foxx was spotted in downtown Phoenix, where he told a small group of people that on April 11th, 2023, he had a bad headache, asked a friend for an Advil, and then woke up 20 days later with no memory of what happened. pic.twitter.com/wIhuvN9hCC

— The Art Of Dialogue (@ArtOfDialogue_) July 1, 2024

A month later, Corrine announced that her father had “been out of the hospital for weeks” and was even “playing pickleball.”

During his first appearance since the hospitalization, Foxx opened up about the experience in his acceptance speech for the Vanguard Award at the Critics Choice Association‘s Celebration of Cinema & Television Honoring Black, Latino & AAPI Achievements in December.

Foxx said at the time that he couldn’t “actually walk” six months prior, adding: “I want to thanks everybody. I’ve been through something, I’ve been through some things.

“I cherish every single minute now — it’s different. I wouldn’t wish what I went through on my worst enemy because it’s tough when it’s almost over … when you see the tunnel. I saw the tunnel — I didn’t see the light,” said Foxx.