Jamie Foxx says doctors dismissed the first symptom of a brain hemorrhage

When Jamie Foxx felt a “severe headache” on April 11, 2023, he went to a doctor who didn’t take his symptoms seriously, gave him a cortisone shot and sent him on his way, as he recounted during his stand-up special “Jamie Foxx: What happened was…”

“I don’t know if you can make Yelps for doctors,” he said in his special. “That’s half a star.”

Luckily, Foxx’s sister, Deidra Dixon, knew something was wrong with her brother and took him to another hospital. There he underwent emergency surgery for an aneurysm that led to a stroke.

Brain aneurysms are common, TODAY.com previously reported, and many are harmless. However, those that tear and bleed, like Foxx’s, are medical emergencies that require immediate surgery. A bleed in the brain, also called an intracranial hemorrhage, is considered a stroke, notes the Cleveland Clinic. The blood pooling in the brain makes it difficult for oxygen to reach the brain.

According to the Cleveland Clinic, symptoms of a ruptured aneurysm include:

• Headaches that feel like “the worst headache of your life.”
• The face hangs on one side
• Weakness or paralysis on one side of the body
• Problems speaking
• Blurred vision or difficulty seeing

“If these occur very suddenly, and especially if they are accompanied by a headache, call 911 and go to the hospital immediately,” said Dr. M. Shazam Hussain, director of the Cleveland Clinic Cerebrovascular Center, told TODAY.com in September 2024.

Hussain noted that some people hesitate to go to the hospital because of headaches. However, missing medical care can result in death in 25% of people with ruptured aneurysms. Even survivors face life-altering changes, with about a third of survivors having severe disabilities, TODAY.com said in previous reports.

“We’ve heard the story too many times that someone had a really bad headache … and had no other symptoms … and unfortunately they waited because they thought, ‘Oh, maybe it’s just a bad headache, a bad migraine,” Hussain said. “Then, a day or two later, the aneurysm ruptures completely, you have a mask of bleeding around the brain, and that can be pretty devastating.”

In Foxx’s case, his sister’s determination likely had an impact on his outcome.

“My sister … said there was something wrong with my brother,” Foxx said. “They said she was kind of driving around Atlanta aimlessly. She didn’t really know where the hospitals were, but as she was driving around she came across Piedmont Hospital.”

Her instincts about Foxx were right. The doctor at that hospital who examined him gave Dixon “some terrible news.”

“He said, ‘He has a brain bleed that led to a stroke, and if I don’t get on his mind now, we’re going to lose him,'” Foxx said.

While the surgery stabilized Foxx, doctors couldn’t determine where the bleeding had started in his brain. Still, they believed Foxx would improve, telling Dixon: “He may make a full recovery, but it will be the worst year of his life,” Foxx said.

Still, it’s unclear why Foxx suffered the brain hemorrhage and stroke.

“It’s a mystery,” he said. “We still don’t know exactly what happened to me.”

In some cases, it may be unclear why someone might suffer a brain aneurysm. People at risk include:

• People with a family history of aneurysms, which includes parents or siblings with an aneurysm
• People with health problems such as Marfan syndrome or arteriovenous malformations
• Young women
• Individuals with poorly controlled high blood pressure
• Those who smoke
• Older men

Foxx said he has no memory of the experience, only remembering waking up 20 days later in a wheelchair on the way to rehabilitation in Chicago.

“Your life doesn’t flash before your face,” Foxx said. “It’s kind of strangely peaceful.”