Comedic actor Jamie Foxx is going back to his stand-up roots with a bit called “What Had Happened Was,” where he will address the many rumors circulating around his mystery illness.
Hollywood held its breath in concern last spring after his daughter, Corinne Foxx, revealed that her father, was taken to a hospital on April 11 after suffering a “medical complication.” Foxx was there working on the film “Back in Action” in Atlanta opposite Cameron Diaz.
Corinne, her family, and Jamie’s team remain very guarded about the details of his diagnosis, leaving room for social media to run rampant with conspiracy theories about what happened to the “Blame It (on the Alcohol)” singer.
Things seemed to be touch and go at one point, with reports that the “Ray” star was “pretty fragile” or “permanently disabled,” though it now appears neither was true. There were also suspicions about him being transferred to a treatment facility in Chicago, and other reports that his family was “preparing for the worst.”
While accepting the Producers Award at the African American Film Critics Association’s 7th Annual AAFCA Special Achievement Awards for his company Foxxhole Productions, Foxx said that the new show will address things that have been said about him being “cloned.”
“I’ll tell you in my way it will be called ‘What Had Happened Was,’ and it’s got all the things that happened, especially on our side of our community,” Foxx said.
“N—gas will come up with anything… ‘He’s a clone!’” he joked. “Even when they saw me out, ‘That ain’t him. That ain’t no god-dang Jamie. That’s a clone.’”
“I’m on the boat [waving] ‘That’s a clone,’” the “In Living Color” alum jested, referring to him being spotted cruising down the Chicago River on a boat with friends last August, four months after the incident. Days later, he helped a woman retrieve her purse after it fell off a trolley.
Foxx added, “I dove out of a car to save this Black woman’s purse and I’m taking a picture, ‘That ain’t no damn Jamie, that’s a clone.’”
“Then they saw me with a white girl, ‘That’s Jamie! You know he loves those white b—ches.’ That’s why I didn’t think I was gonna get this award. I’m not Black enough,” he joked.
A clip from the Oscar winner’s speech was posted on social media, and fans could not help but crack up, believing that the real Jamie Foxx is back to himself.
“Still sharp at comedy… when he do stand up he top 5,” one person wrote.
Another added sarcastically, “Things a clone would say.”
Others couldn’t get past the fact that there was a table of older white men in the front who didn’t get the joke.
“Why was the white people so upset?” one comment quipped, while someone else wrote, “Them white folks that didn’t laugh don’t have a soul.”
Perhaps they didn’t see or understand the jokes about Foxx dating white women or being cloned, though some are still not buying it based on another video Foxx shared on his Instagram page. “??? Something’s off and im praying for my brotha !” wrote one critic in the comments.
The clone conspiracy was so rampant after the health scare that even his friends had to step up to defend him. Ice-T weighed in on the X platform following criticism about Foxx’s frail and pale appearance in the first public statement of himself explaining that he had been through “hell and back.” The actor did his signature Wanda cross-eyes move to highlight that he hadn’t lost his sense of humor.
“I want you to see me laughing, having a good time partying, cracking a joke, doing a movie or television show,” Foxx said. “I didn’t want you to see me with tubes running out of me and trying to figure out if I was going to make it through.”
Ice-T chimed in, writing on X, “People would rather believe that Jamie is now a Clone or Ai, than the man was just seriously sick and damn near died. Cause he doesn’t look EXACTLY the same??? YOU look different after a bad cold! Smh weirdos..”
People would rather believe that Jamie is now a Clone or Ai, than the man was just seriously sick and damn near died… Cause he doesn’t look EXACTLY the same??? YOU look different after a bad cold! Smh weirdos.. https://t.co/EWklg56bnW
— ICE T (@FINALLEVEL) July 23, 2023
While things are fun and games, the reality is that Foxx was pretty bad off last year.
In December 2023, at the Critics Choice Association’s Celebration of Cinema & Television: Honoring Black, Latino, and AAPI Achievements in Los Angeles, he talked about his affliction.
“I want to thank everybody. I’ve been through something. I’ve been through some things,” he shared while getting emotional on stage.
“It’s crazy, I couldn’t do that six months ago,” “The Jamie Foxx Show” star continued before saying, “I couldn’t actually walk too.”
But now he is back and in full swing, preparing to share with fans “what had happened” to him during one of the most challenging times of his life.
