“I’m not a clone,” Jamie Foxx assured his fans and industry peers as he made his first Hollywood appearance in months.
“I’ve been through some things. You know it’s crazy, I couldn’t do that six months ago, I couldn’t actually walk,” he said at the Critics Choice Celebration of Cinema & Television. “I know a lot of people were saying I was cloned out there, well y’all ain’t s—.”
The Oscar winning “Ray” star accepted the ceremony’s vanguard award on Monday evening, months after he was hospitalized with an unspecified medical emergency in April. Accepting the honor from his “Burial” co-star Jurnee Smollett, Foxx returned to the public eye with a mix of emotion and humor about his mystery ailment, and gratitude for his Black Hollywood community.
“Thank you so much for holding me down all the time,” he said. “It’s harder to impress Black folks … every time you get an award [there’s] always somebody saying, ‘Man, my cousin do the same thing.’”
The 55-year-old‘s daughter Corinne Foxx announced her father’s hospitalization in April in a since-deleted family statement on Instagram.
“Luckily, due to quick action and great care, he is already on his way to recovery,” the statement said.
In the months since his health scare, Foxx and his family provided updates to fans about the actor’s health, but have stayed mum about the details of his illness.
Since his hospitalization, “I cherish every single minute,” Foxx said Monday. He also said he wouldn’t “wish what I went through on my worst enemy.”
He continued: “I saw the tunnel, I didn’t see no light. It was hot in that tunnel … s—, am I going to the right place? I just see the Devil like, “‘C’mon.’”
Foxx made his Hollywood comeback just weeks after he was accused of sexual assault in a lawsuit filed in state Supreme Court in Manhattan. A woman, identified as Jane Doe, alleged that the actor (birth name Eric Bishop) rubbed her breasts and groped her under her pants against her will in 2015 at Catch NYC, a popular New York City restaurant and bar.
A representative for Foxx denied the allegations in a statement shared with the Associated Press.
“In 2020, this individual filed a nearly identical lawsuit in Brooklyn. That case was dismissed shortly thereafter. The claims are no more viable today than they were then. We are confident they will be dismissed again. And once they are, Mr. Foxx intends to pursue a claim for malicious prosecution against this person and her attorneys for re-filing this frivolous action,” the statement said.
The woman is seeking damages to be determined at trial, the suit says.
Foxx was one in a handful of high-profile men facing lawsuits filed before the New York Adult Survivors Act’s expiration in late November. Last month, music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs was accused of rape, sexual assault and sex trafficking by singer and former partner Cassie. The two parties reached a settlement just a day after the incendiary lawsuit was filed.
Guns N’ Roses co-founder Axl Rose, Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler and former Grammys chief Neil Portnow are all facing separate sexual misconduct lawsuits filed in New York.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
