Jamie Foxx’s ‘What Happened Was…’ and Other Comedy Specials to Watch

The latest batch of comedy specials worth watching starts with a much anticipated one from Jamie Foxx and includes hours from Matthew Broussard, Anthony Jeselnik and Fortune Feimster.

Jamie Foxx ‘What Had Happened Was …’

(Stream it on Netflix)

In April 2023, news broke that Jamie Foxx had been hospitalized in Atlanta with what his daughter described on Instagram as a “medical complication.” Not much else was revealed, and in the vacuum of information, rumors spread. When a photo of Foxx appeared online, some conspiracy-minded types called it a clone. Katt Williams even jokingly questioned and made fun of his “mysterious illness.”

Now Foxx says he wants to set the record straight. Speaking in a theater a few hundred yards from the hospital where he says his life was saved, Foxx enters wearing sunglasses but takes them off quickly to wipe away tears. He says he experienced a brain bleed, suffered a stroke, temporarily lost the ability to walk and doesn’t remember 20 days of his life. It’s a moving performance that feels like part of a growing trend of how comics deal with medical catastrophe.

Tig Notaro did a famous hour about flirting with death not long after she got a cancer diagnosis. Keith Robinson also turned his two strokes into irreverent comedy. Foxx’s special is a much more polished production and sentimental affair. He tells a few jokes, pays tribute to his family repeatedly (he brings two daughters onstage) and preaches the virtues of prayer and comedy (“If I could stay funny, I could stay alive”).

His most amusing moments involve his gift for impressions, including a riotous imagining of Denzel Washington if he, like Foxx, needed help going to the bathroom in a hospital. Foxx also does an excellent Katt Williams. But this isn’t a stand-up special so much as a celebration, an act of gratitude and the kind of emotive video often posted on Instagram.