Jamie Foxx detailed how his 16-year-old daughter, Anelise, saved his life after he suffered a brain bleed and stroke in April 2023.
In his new Netflix special, “Jamie Foxx: What Had Happened Was…,” the “Blame It” singer shared how his youngest daughter’s musical skills helped him stay alive in the Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta.
“They said at one point, the first 15 days, they thought they were going to lose me because my vitals were out of control,” he recalled onstage at the Alliance Theatre in the Georgia capital.
“There was a 13- or 14-day period where they said, ‘We’ve gotta keep him calm and we’ve given him every medication that they could. It’s not working, we gotta keep him calm because his vitals are so high we’re going to lose him.’”
Foxx, 56, joked that the “worst thing” to have in a hospital when you’re trying to keep calm are “Black family members.”
However, he said a “miracle” began working when his then-14-year-old daughter, Anelise, sat at his hospital bedside.
“I didn’t want her to see me like that but she snuck into my hospital room with her guitar and she said, ‘I know what my daddy needs … that’s my daddy,’” the dad of two recalled.
The “Ray” actor became emotional as he recounted his child’s actions during that rough time.
“They said when she was playing, my vitals went down. The nurses at the nurses’ station were baffled. Like, ‘Wow what did they give him?’” he shared.
“They rushed into the room and she said, ‘Ssh. I got him.’ … Do you know what I found out? That God was in that guitar. That’s my spiritual defibrillator.”
Foxx then asked Anelise to join him onstage during the Netflix special, which was taped in October, so she could show the crowd her guitar skills.
“Play, play, play,” he emotionally told the teen. “Let them see your talent. Shine Anelise, shine baby.”
The Oscar winner then hugged his daughter, thanking her for “stepping up when all was lost.”
In “Jamie Foxx: What Had Happened Was…,” which hit the streaming service on Tuesday, Foxx revealed for the first time what happened to him when he was rushed to the hospital in 2023 with a mystery illness.
The triple threat said he suffered “a brain bleed that has led to a stroke” and needed emergency surgery on his head.
Foxx said he didn’t “see the light” during his operation but he recalled feeling “oddly peaceful” in a “tunnel.”
After he became conscious 20 days later, the Grammy winner was in a wheelchair.
“I was like, ‘Why the f–k am I in a wheelchair?’ I’m just coming out of s–t,” he recalled, admitting the whole incident felt “like a f–king prank.”
Foxx’s oldest daughter, Corinne, 30, broke the news that her dad had been hospitalized following a “medical complication” in April 2023.
The following month, the “47 Meters Down: Uncaged” actress shot down reports that her family was “preparing for the worst” by revealing that the “Gold Digger” crooner had been “out of the hospital for weeks” and was recently playing pickleball.
“Jamie Foxx: What Had Happened Was…” is now streaming on Netflix.
