Jamie Foxx delivered a heartfelt speech Monday about his harrowing health scare in April.
The actor accepted the Vanguard Award for his role in “The Burial” (2023) at the Critics Choice Association’s “Celebration of Cinema & Television Honoring Black, Latino & AAPI Achievements” gala when he reflected on his emergency hospitalization.
“I couldn’t do that six months ago,” Foxx said about walking across the stage, as seen in a video shared by Deadline.
“I wanna thank everybody,” he continued. “I’ve been through something. I’ve been through some things. You know, it’s crazy — I couldn’t do that six months ago. I couldn’t actually walk to [the podium].”
“And I’m not a clone, I’m not a clone,” he said, to laughter.
Foxx faced rabid speculation after he was hospitalized in mid-April, despite efforts from his sister Deidra Dixon and daughter Corinne Foxx to keep the matter private. The specifics remain unknown, spurring theories on social media theories that Foxx died and was replaced by a clone.
“I know a lot of people been saying I was cloned out there,” he said Monday. “Boy, y’all ain’t shit.”
The Oscar winner earnestly thanked his Black fans for their support, joking that they are “harder to impress” than white fans — as “there’s always somebody” that says, “Man, my cousin do the same thing” when he wins an award.
Foxx, who endured weeks of recovery, was nonetheless grateful just to be conscious.
“It feels good to be here,” he said Monday. “I cherish every single minute now, it’s different. It’s beyond. I wouldn’t wish what I went through on my worst enemy, ’cause it’s tough when it’s almost over, when you see the tunnel. I saw the tunnel — I didn’t see the light.”
“It was hot in that tunnel, I don’t know where I was going,” he joked. “Shit, am I going to the right place?”
LM Otero/Associated Press
The “Django Unchained” star recalled a Black hospital staffer asking to see his veiled face while admitting Foxx, only to recognize him and say, “Lord, have mercy, Jesus.”
“I wanna thank you for all the prayers, because the one thing that I have to get used to now, is the ‘Lord, have mercy, Jesus’ when I see people,” he said Monday. “I be driving and I see people pull up and hit me with that.”
Foxx, who has two children and lost one of his two sisters in 2020, concluded by thanking Dixon and Corinne Foxx — because they “were so great at not letting anybody know anything that happened. And I can only say that you need somebody like that in your corner.”
The actor was accused of sexual assault in a lawsuit last month for allegedly groping a woman at the Catch restaurant in New York City in August 2015. He denied any wrongdoing in a statement from representatives.