Jamie Foxx’s Misguided Therapy and Worship Session
Why What Had Happened Was… isn't the testimony Foxx believes it to be
Watching the multitalented entertainer Jamie Foxx’s Netflix comedy special What Had Happened Was… this week confirmed my increasing wariness for USian pop culture. I I was never a big fan of The Jamie Foxx Show, and though Foxx has proven himself to be a very good actor — his portrayal of Ray Charles in Ray (2004) did win Foxx an Oscar for Best Actor, after all (a movie I enjoyed, despite the historical/biographical inaccuracies, by the way) — he’s not that funny to me. Still, my Black women friends and online peeps said Foxx’s special was “moving” and “a religious experience” and “so real.” I do listen for new stuff and read for understanding, so based on those accolades, I watched anyway.
I definitely should have known better. Not that Foxx’s testimony wasn’t moving. Anyone with the wealth and popularity of Jamie Foxx, going through medical issues and death experiences would find their worldview turned upside-down. He was teary-eyed from beginning to end, yelling “Thank you Atlanta! Thank you, Atlanta, for saving my life!,” and “I love you Atlanta” (Netflix taped the special in Atlanta). Watching him get serious and talk about his narcissism brought me to tears. “Jamie Foxx don’t get strokes…I don’t get strokes…That’s old man shit. I don’t get strokes, nigga,” he said. When told he needed both physical and psychological therapy to deal with his recovery from the stroke, Foxx apparently said, “I don’t need no therapist…I’m Jamie Muthafuckin’ Foxx.” When a therapist tried to get Foxx to see that he had been given a second chance, Foxx apparently asked, “What was wrong with my first chance?”
The sense of confusion, frustration, anger, and genuine thanks for still being among the living, that part was emotional. But once Foxx got into the weeds between his sense of comedy and sense of Christianity, that dissonant reverberation was enough to crack a crystal quartz, like Freddy Mercury singing a high-falsetto aria at La Scala in Milan. Foxx literally put everything he’s gone through since April 2023 on God. “I knew why this was happening to me. It was God,” with God saying back to Foxx, “‘You belong to me…You remember when you played the piano for the church? When’s the last time you been to church, my nigga?’” Later on, Foxx said, “God blessed me with this talent. He blessed me with all this money and this fame. And when I forgot about God..He blessed me with a stroke.”
Everyone has the right to believe there’s an intelligence behind the creation of this multiverse of universes, of life on Earth and elsewhere, within every quark and every galaxy of stars. Or at least, all of us should have the right to believe or not believe in God or god or gods of Yahweh or Allah or Orisha or Kali. Each of us certainly should have the right to their own testimony about life, death, and afterlife, the distance between the knowable and the supernatural and metaphysical. That said, Foxx’s testimony sounded like he believed God meant to humiliate him with a stroke. And yes, there is a difference between humility and humiliation. Because even in the midst of his thank-yous, thank God, I-love-yous to his daughters and sister, his gospel song and piano playing, Foxx still centered himself — not exactly humble. Foxx turned God into Zeus, an entity randomly striking in his-mid-50s-beautiful-life with an aneurysm and stroke and near death experiences.
Perhaps there is no mystery here. Anything from the long-term consequences of contracting COVID to too much plaque in Foxx’s arteries could have caused the no-bleed stroke and the need for a long recovery. That Foxx believes God directly intervened, that’s his belief. In putting his testimony out for millions to stream, watch, and hear, though, it’s a message to the world. “God don’t like ugly,” many Black church attendees I’ve known have said over the years. And if you’re not going to church, or giving of your blessings and riches, or out in the world sinning (hint: we are all not perfect, living in evil systems like capitalism, so we all invariably sin), God will strike at any moment to claim you.
This is how little children think, or at least are taught to think by Christians who think like babies. As journalist Dr. Stacey Patton posted on X/Twitter a few months back, “THE BIBLE ITSELF IS COLONIZED! It’s not just about how Christianity was used by colonizers—it’s about how the Bible was shaped, edited, and interpreted in ways that supported empire-building and control.” Meaning that the “Bible wasn’t just shaped by colonizers—it became a colonizing tool itself.” Using religion to keep people pliant, ignorant, and judgmental of anything and anyone different, especially Christianity, well, it leads people to simplistic and binary explanations for incidents that otherwise seem inexplicable. Since most people see other people as good or evil, godly or ungodly, Foxx’s testimony rings louder than the vibrations from the Abell 1201 black hole, a circular rip in space-time with the mass of 30 billion Suns.
Because of such Matrix-level beliefs in the simple and black and white, allowing any people — much less any Christian folk — the room for gray areas is almost as sacrilegious as saying that God only exists in our minds and not in reality. Even in this, Foxx is self-serving. His testimony not only provides Foxx and his fans a plausible explanation. It provides Foxx control where he did not have it before. God “blessing” him “with a stroke” is better than believing that previous bouts with COVID or with diabetes or high blood pressure is what did him in. Or worse, that with 86 billion neurons with their 1 x 1015 synaptic connections to one quadrillion cells and 36,000 miles’ worth of arteries, veins, and capillaries running for more than 55 years, something could eventually just go wrong. For any USian, in which narcissism is normal, that is a truly scary thought. For Foxx, it was probably universe-shattering.
“If I can stay funny, I can stay alive.” That’s what Foxx said several times during his hour-long comedy special. It was a mantra, an unknowing call-and-response to his audience as Foxx put himself on the proverbial couch to get his fans to listen and support him. As a skeptical USian, I am just as tired of stand-up shows turning into open-source therapy sessions for comedians as I am of obtuse, simple, and colonized Christians. In recent years, I have seen Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock do the same. And all while also profiting from this form of not-very-funny comedy.
Take it from someone who knows. To quote the very colonized King James version, Proverbs 4:7, “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.” That is deep work, done often with a therapist, but done even more often by working on oneself, in prayer, in reading, in changing habits, in listening to the people in one’s life who love you, and by heeding the sage advice of those you once ignored. That work can take years, even if the mindset and spirit-set changes immediately. Sadly, while I do think What Had Happened Was… reflects the good news of Foxx’s disillusionment with his centrality to the universe, I also think he lacks the understanding to walk in his sudden sense of wisdom.
I feel like Jamie Foxx is really narcissistic. He always makes it about himself.
“I am just as tired of stand-up shows turning into open-source therapy sessions for comedians as I am of obtuse, simple, and colonized Christians. In recent years, I have seen Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock do the same. And all while also profiting from this form of not-very-funny comedy.”
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