“I felt great after mine. I felt very confident.”
Two years after Jamie Foxx spent nearly a month in an Atlanta hospital, the actor accepted the Ultimate Icon Award at the 2025 BET awards on June 9.
The Ultimate Icon Award, created in 2015, honors “veteran artists for their significant contributions to music, dance, and music videos.” In addition to Foxx, Mariah Carey, Snoop Dogg, and Kirk Franklin were also present with the award.
(Warning: The link below contains language some may find offensive.)
During Foxx’s acceptance speech, the performer grew emotional as his two daughters, Corinne Foxx and Anelise Foxx watched from the audience.
“We used to take this saying for granted, that ‘God is good,’” Foxx began before acknowledging all the love and support from his peers and his fans.
“I gotta be honest, when I saw the In Memoriam, I was like, ‘Man, that could have been me,’” he continued, referencing the health scare he endured in 2023, as his daughter also grew increasingly emotional.
During his Netflix special, “What Had Happened Was…,” Foxx revealed that he was hospitalized roughly 20 days with a “brain bleed that led to a stroke.”
Foxx couldn’t walk, nor could he recall what had happened from April 11, when he first began experiencing a headache to May 4, when he woke up.
After undergoing rehabilitation, Foxx experienced a full recovery.
“I don't know why I went through what I went through, but I know my second chance I'm not going to turn down. I'm not going to turn down. I have so much love to give. I told Him, I said, ‘Man, bro, just give me one more crack at this. And I promise.’ I said, ‘Whatever reason you put this on me, I promise, Imma do right, and imma do right in front of y'all,” Foxx shared.
“And I don’t want to make this whole speech about that but you can’t go through something like that and not testify,” Foxx continued.
Foxx went on to call out each of his daughters individually, praising Corinne for getting in the driver’s seat when he needed her most.
“Corinne, I cannot say enough about you. You've always taken the back seat to everything, but when you needed to drive it, you drove and you made sure I was here.”
He then turned his attention to Anelise, calling her his “baby with the big hair.”
“She hides under that hair because she got something special. You're so beautiful, man. When I was fighting for my life in there, I got to say this. They said that ‘we going to lose him because his vitals is bad.’ I didn't want my 14 year old to see me like that. But my Anelise overheard the conversation, and she snuck into my hospital room with her guitar and said, ‘I know what my Daddy needs.’ And as she played the guitar, my vitals dropped and I realized that God was in that guitar. And the nurses ran in and said, ‘What did they give him?’ And my daughter says, ‘I got him.’
In the comment section, fans commented on Corinne and Anelise’s emotions during their father’s speech.
“You can see the pain in his daughters still. So glad he won that fight,” one comment read.
“You can tell his daughters love him.”
“When he told his daughter you always took the back seat but when you needed to drive..... YOU DROVE! I fell out crying!”
