Key Takeaways:
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Jamie Foxx reveals he believed he was cloned during his 2023 stroke recovery, influenced by online conspiracy theories.
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The Oscar winner says heavy sedation and viral rumors blurred reality, leading to a surreal recovery experience.
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In his Netflix special and recent interviews, Foxx opens up about the stroke that nearly killed him and how it changed his life.
In mid-2023, Jamie Foxx suffered a near-fatal stroke while filming Netflix’s Back in Action in Atlanta. The medical emergency was kept under wraps, sparking wild conspiracy theories online, including claims that Foxx had been cloned. Now, he is revealing that just like his fans, he briefly fell for the stories too.
Foxx broke his silence that July to thank his supporters, but still kept his medical situation private. As a result, assumptions about his prognosis ran the gamut as reports of him undergoing extensive testing and seeking treatment at a rehabilitation facility in Chicago were spread in the media. Among them were wild stories suggesting he had fallen victim to the very plot of his movie, They Cloned Tyrone.
That actor starred as Slick Charles opposite John Boyega’s Fontaine and Teyonah Parris’ Yo-Yo. Together, the trio uncovers an underground shadow government lab where Black people are used for various experiments, including cloning. In “The Hollywood Reporter’s Stand-Up Comedy Roundtable,” published on Thursday (May 22), the entertainer admitted that he, too, thought there was a more nefarious scheme involved in his medical care.
Prescription pills were making it hard for Jamie Foxx to focus on reality
According to Jamie, he was so sedated with OxyContin, Dilantin, and morphine to treat his pain that he began to lose his memory and get lost in the hysteria surrounding his health scare. “They Men in Black-ed me and I’m f**ked up, and this isn’t funny, but I snuck in my phone because I didn’t know what the outside world was saying and I couldn’t get my mind around the fact that I had a stroke,” he told comedians Roy Wood Jr., Chelsea Handler, Sarah Silverman, Hasan Minhaj, and Seth Meyers. “When they said I was a clone, that made me flip. I’m sitting in the hospital bed, like, ‘These b**ch-a** motherf**kers are trying to clone me.’ And then I saw me walk into my room, but I’m white, so I see the white me,” Foxx playfully recalled of his delusions.
He continued, “The next morning, I said, ‘I know what’s up, you’re trying to clone me and make me white, so I’ll sell better overseas.’ The psychiatrist says, ‘Are you all right?’ And I say, ‘Am I all right, or am I all white? I saw you trying to get the white motherf**king Jamie Foxx, and it ain’t going to happen.’ He just calmly goes, ‘I think we’re going to lower your dosage.’” When Wood asked him, “Wait, you read your conspiracy theory and you said, ‘Yes’? The Academy Award winner could only respond, “Bro, I was on another planet.”
Jamie Foxx finally revealed details about his health scare in “What Had Happened Was…” Netflix special
In December 2024, Foxx spoke in detail for the first time about his frightening health emergency. In his one-man special, “What Had Happened Was…,” he revealed that the ordeal began after he took an aspirin for what he thought was a terrible headache. He came to 20 days later to learn that he suffered a brain bleed, which led to a stroke.
When the Ray star first stepped back into the spotlight to accept the Vanguard Award at the 2023 Critics Choice Association‘s Celebration of Cinema and Television: Honoring Black, Latino and AAPI Achievements, Foxx shared that he is forever changed by the incident. “I cherish every single minute now. It’s different. You know? It’s different. It’s beyond — 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,” he expressed in his speech.
Hollywood could not have written a story with more twists. But now, Foxx has full control of the narrative surrounding the medical trauma and rumors about one of the most intense chapters of his life.
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