Jamie Foxx's New Stand Up Special, "What Happened Was..." Drops Tonight At Midnight, Where He Addresses His Freak "Medical Emergency" Last Year And Disappearance From Public
People Magazine - Jamie Foxx is setting the record straight about his mysterious medical ordeal.
In his Netflix special Jamie Foxx: What Had Happened Was…, streaming Tuesday, Dec. 10, the Oscar winner, 56, reveals he was “literally seconds and moments away from death” when he collapsed in April 2023, says audience member Demecos Chambers, who attended an October taping of the special in Atlanta.
“It was just pure exhaustion. His body was just exhausted due to him getting up there in age, and his body just faltering out on him,” Chambers recalls Foxx sharing onstage.
The actor was in Georgia at the time working on the upcoming Netflix movie Back in Action with Cameron Diaz, but he did not collapse on the set of the film.
“When he passed out, he thought he was just out for a few moments,” Chambers tells PEOPLE. “He basically passed out in an elevator and he thought he woke up a couple hours later. Well, he was actually in a coma and didn’t wake up until a few weeks later.”
Chambers says while Foxx, a father to daughters Corinne and Anelise, was in a coma, one of the girls would strum the guitar for her dad.
"She's playing one of their favorite songs or whatever on a daily basis. And he said that's the only thing that he could recall hearing in his sleep, and it brought him essentially out of his coma,” says Chambers.
After he woke up, he "went to a rehab facility and he talked about how his motor skills he had to start from day one,” says Chambers.
Though Foxx details his harrowing experience, the special isn’t all serious, says Chambers. “While he's telling the story, he's throwing bits in there left and right,” he says. “It's stand-up comedy. He's dancing a little bit. He's playing songs on the piano."
Not to make this blog about myself right off the top, but I have a problem. I need ADHD medication, or an assistant. Or both. I have 100 or so half baked blogs on stories and subjects I start on, and then never get back to finishing. This story being one of them.
This started back in October when reports started coming out of Atlanta after Foxx taped his special for Netflix, which begins streaming tonight at midnight.
Media Takeout- Jamie is currently in the process of taping a Netflix comedy special, in front of live audiences all across Los Angeles. And during the special he talks about his stroke.
During Jamie’s special – which is entitled What Had Really Happened Was …, Jamie explained what happened before, during, and after his stroke. Media Take Out confirmed that Jamie tells fans, “Diddy was responsible” for his stroke.
According to Jamie, he was poisoned by the former Bad Boy music legend. And it wasn’t quite a joke.
Media Take Out confirmed that when Jamie uttered those words, fans initially started laughing. But then Jamie looked directly at a fan, and gave them a look – like, I’m not joking.
Page Six - Three eyewitnesses who attended tapings of Foxx’s forthcoming Netflix special, “What Had Happened Was,” said he discussed allegations that Combs caused his hospitalization, but the audience members had different recollections of what the comedian said.
Earlier this month, Choke No Joke — who is a videographer, producer and director — told Comedy Hype he attended two of Foxx’s three shows, which took place on Oct. 4, 5 and 6 at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta.
On Oct. 7, Comedy Hype uploaded a YouTube video in which Choke said, “Jamie has a special coming out on Netflix called ‘What Had Happened Was,’ and I went to the taping of it. It was three days taping. I went to the first show; I went to the last show.”
Choke claimed Foxx stated during the tapings that “Diddy was responsible for what happened to him, and [Foxx] is the one who called the FBI on [Combs].” However, it is unclear whether the alleged comments will be included in the final cut of the special.
Here is the video in question-
Asked whether the alleged comments were presented as a “joke,” Choke replied, “I don’t think he was joking.
“Y’all can determine was he joking or not when you see the show, ’cause to me — I’m a new comedian, right? … I know when somebody’s setting up a punchline, and I know when you’re serious,” Choke continued, noting that he didn’t want to “give away [Foxx’s] jokes.”
Page Six cannot independently confirm whether the alleged comments were made or received by others in jest.
“After [Foxx] said, ‘Diddy did something to me,’ he said, ‘And I’m the one who called the feds on him,'” Choke reiterated, hypothesizing that Foxx might have done so because he was “scared.”
“He disappeared, right? He out now, soon as Puff went to jail, right? We see him at the game with [Dallas Cowboys owner] Jerry Jones, right? … We haven’t seen him. As soon as Puff went to jail, [Foxx] was at the goddamn Dallas football game, right? And now he just went and shot his special. And who’s the special strongly based around? Diddy,” Choke claimed.
You can understand why I didn't rush to spend time writing about this, not knowing full well if the claims were true, and if I spent time blogging it up, if that blog would ever see the light of day.
TMZ came out and retracted their initial story, which was similar to the Media Take Out and Page Six ones, and now claim, "he was making a joke".
However, a third attendee, Dennis L.A. White, told Page Six that he went to the second and third tapings of the show. He claimed he heard Foxx say something more along the lines of, “People keep asking me if Diddy was responsible. He was not responsible. If he was, I would’ve been dead.”
But I don't know.
More former bodyguards of Combs' have come forward since and said that there is truth to the claims.
Either way, I'm looking forward to watching this tonight after the Bengals Cowboys game and deciding for myself. Hopefully Netflix didn't cut that part out and left it in.
I am a huge Jamie Foxx fan, and have been ever since catching one of his old stand up specials, "I Might Need Security". The parts about Shaq and his trip to Africa are fucking hilarious.
Here's hoping this new special is half as good.
Here is the trailer.
p.s. - I think Jamie Foxx is one of the most talented humans alive. I always admired him for his musical and comedic talent, but after hearing his interview on Tim Ferriss' podcast, my respect for him reached an entirely new level.
If you like long for interviews, learning about what makes successful people tick, and how they got to where they are, then you will love this discussion.
In it, Foxx describes growing up in rural Texas, "on the wrong side of the tracks", and being raised by his grandmother. Foxx's grandmother, a self-made businesswoman with an eighth-grade education, taught him life lessons like confidence and seeing the bigger picture in religion. She taught him how to play the piano, and put him to work in town playing piano at parties for wealthy people in their homes and at events. Exposing Foxx to that kind of lifestyle at such a young age encouraged Foxx to "work his ass off" so that he could one day get to that level and throw those kinds of parties, in a house of his own, like that.
He explains how he used music to cross over into comedy and acting and then back into music again. Foxx's approach to breaking records involved a unique strategy of performing in clubs across the East Coast, using his comedic skills to engage audiences and promote his music. He recalled how his third-grade teacher allowed him to perform stand-up comedy for his classmates, drawing inspiration from watching Johnny Carson and other comedians on TV. Jamie's transition from "Eric Marlon Bishop" to his stage name was a strategic move to get more stage time at open mic nights, where he cleverly used unisex names to stand out, citing that comedy venue owners would almost always opt to book "Jamie Foxx" rather than Eric Bishop.
There's one part where Ferriss asks Foxx what advice he would give to his younger self, and Foxx says it depends on what age he'd be speaking to himself at, because of how much all of us evolve. At 20, he emphasizes the importance of responsibility and focus, advising his younger self to "put the condom on" and calm down as he navigated the excitement of Los Angeles. At 30, he stresses the need for long-term planning and financial prudence, warning that "it's going to go fast" and urging his younger self to avoid unnecessary expenses. And by 40, Foxx reflects on the necessity of making tough business decisions and balancing personal relationships with professional growth.
He talks at length about the challenges he faced in stand-up comedy, including the humbling experience of bombing on stage. He recounted his first bombing incident at a show for an older audience, where his jokes failed to connect, and how important it was for him to convince himself to get back up on stage and become better. He equates it to everything in life.
The interview is inspiring as hell. Aside from being insanely, insanely talent, Foxx works his ass off and is a truly impressive. I'm really glad he's still alive and doing better.
p.p.s. - Jamie Foxx telling the story about how Kanye West "got him started in music" with his song with Twista, "Slow Jamz", and how it came about will blow your mind and make you long for the days of "Old Kanye" again so bad.
Also, this song turned 21 years old last week. Where does the time go?