If I Could Stay Funny, I Could Stay Alive’: Jamie Foxx Recalls Impersonating Denzel Washington And Doing Other Wild Things In The Hospital After His Stroke
Jamie Foxx is back in action, both personally and professionally, as his film Back In Action premiered on Netflix’s 2025 schedule and he opened up about being hospitalized after having a stroke almost two years ago. Now, while we get to laugh at him and Cameron Diaz in their new film, the comedian also brought the funny as he spoke about how humor — and wild things like impersonating Denzel Washington — helped save him in the hospital.
While speaking about his Netflix stand-up special, What Had Happened Was, and addressing his medical scare, Foxx also talked about using humor in his personal life to help his recovery. Now, his daughters might not have been aware of his standup career growing up, but he mentioned during this chat on The Graham Norton Show that he’s always been funny at home too.
Setting the scene for what led to his funny hospital interactions, Foxx explained how he reacted when he woke up after his stroke:
When it happened, I didn’t remember it happened. … I had a brain bleed that led to a stroke. Me, like, that don’t happen to me. And, when I finally came to, I didn’t even realize what happened, because I missed 20 days of my life. And, when I came to, I said, ‘Yo, what am I doing in this wheelchair?’ And my boy said, ‘You had a stroke.’ I said, ‘Come on, bro, I’m Jamie Foxx. Jamie Foxx don’t have strokes.’ And he said, ‘Bro, don’t try to get out that chair, because you can’t walk. And I fell. I said ‘What, where is Ashton Kutcher? Am I being Punk’d?’ So when it settled in, I was like, ‘Man.’ It’s beyond this. So, as we’re sitting here, it’s beyond on all this. Man, I really gotta try to get back.
To get back, the Oscar winner had the support of his daughters, family and friends. However, he also had his sense of humor.
We’ve seen this funny side displayed in some of Foxx’s best movies and standup work. However, the nurses at the hospital got a front-row seat to his comedy. The actor explained that he’d joke around and impersonate Denzel Washington in the hospital as a way to heal, he said:
The only way I did get back was kinda being funny. I kept saying – I say it in my stand-up – ‘If I could stay funny, I could stay alive.’ So, when they would come check on me, I was always telling jokes to the point that they thought something was wrong with me. … ‘Where are you, sir?’ ‘I’m at the fix-it place.’ They said, ‘Who are you, sir?’ And I was never myself. I would always be someone else. … And, for like three days, I was Denzel.
As you can see in the video, Foxx did his funny impression of Denzel Washington, imitating what he’d do in the hospital when people asked him how he was.
Honestly, it’s a stellar impression. It’s one Foxx has done before too, and in an interview with Grey Goose Vodka, he even did it in front of Washington, who found it hilarious.
In times of trouble, comedy can really help heal, and that’s been proven over and over again. Jamie Foxx’s story here is just further justification for why humor truly can make everything better.
I hope the nurses got a kick out of his Denzel impression, and now I’m gonna need Foxx to host SNL so he can bring that impersonation and others to live TV for all of us to enjoy. In the meantime, we can all appreciate Jamie Foxx, who is healed, happy and healthy, by streaming his film Back in Action and his standup special with a Netflix subscription.
