Jamie Foxx Breaks Down at BET Awards as He Reflects on His Near-Fatal Stroke

Jamie Foxx couldn’t hold back the tears on Monday night (June 9) as he accepted the Ultimate Icon Award at the 2025 BET Awards.

The Back In Action star got emotional as he reflected on his 2023 health scare and his “second chance” at life. “Man, we used to take this thing for granted—that God is good, all the time,” he said. “I cannot even begin to express the love that I feel from everybody out there.”

“I gotta be honest, when I saw the In Memoriam, I was like, man, it could have been me,” he continued, tearing up. “I don’t know why I went through what I went through, but I know my second chance, I’m not gonna turn down.”

Foxx experienced a medical emergency while filming his Netflix movie Back in Action in Atlanta in April 2023. He spent several weeks in hospital and a physical rehabilitation center. In his 2024 Netflix special, What Had Happened Was…, he revealed he suffered a near-fatal stroke.

In his heartfelt BET Awards speech, the Oscar-winning actor stated, “I have so much love to give. I told him [God], I said, man, just give me one more crack at this. I said, for whatever reason you put this on me, I promise I’m gonna do right. And I’m gonna do right in front of y’all ’cause I know a lot of times when we get on, we forget about where we come from.”

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He added, “When I did my special, it was in front of Black people. Black people were the ones that said, ‘man, we got you.’ Not to say that white people can’t pray either. I know that sounds weird, but y’all know what I’m saying. It’s like you guys held me down, 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 also thanked his daughters, Corinne and Anelise, for always being by his side and helping him through his recovery. He recalled Anelise sneaking her guitar into the hospital to play for him while he was recovering. “As she played the guitar, my vitals dropped,” he shared, adding, “I knew God was in that guitar.”

Wrapping up his speech, Foxx thanked BET for the Icon Award, noting, “I say this all the time: thank you to Black people and the Black award, because this is what really counts. A lot of people think like the Oscars is the biggest thing, and we got to quit thinking like that. And that’s coming from a person who won an Oscar; I was nominated twice. But the Icon Award is the most important award because it comes from us.”

You can watch Foxx’s full speech in the video above.