Fact-checking baseless rumors about Jamie Foxx's health and COVID-19 vaccines

Claims about actor Jamie Foxx’s health are back in the news again — this time from a faulty report that he was left "paralyzed and blind." 

Foxx has been the subject of speculation since he was hospitalized in April for an undisclosed reason; his family said he suffered a "medical complication" April 12 while filming a new movie in Atlanta.

Charlie Kirk, founder and president of conservative group Turning Point USA, connected Foxx’s illness to a COVID-19 vaccine complication, sharing a rumor on his Instagram and Twitter pages that Foxx was now paralyzed and blind.

"According to reports, Jamie Foxx is now ‘paralyzed and blind’ from a blood clot in his brain after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine,’" Kirk wrote on Twitter. "Those of us who spoke against the mRNA shot were attacked in every imaginable way. I am infuriated a decent person like Jamie Foxx fell victim to Big Pharma because a movie set is still dumb enough to mandate their cash cow clot shot." 

Kirk redacted some of his words about the COVID-19 vaccine in the Instagram version of that post, which was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.) 

Kirk cited gossip columnist and TV show host A.J. Benza, who talked about Foxx in a May 30 episode of the "Ask Dr. Drew" podcast. Benza said he received information from an unnamed source that Foxx was pressured to get vaccinated to work on a film, and Foxx suffered a blood clot in his brain. 

"The last I heard was partial paralysis and some blindness," Benza said on the show, claiming that Foxx was still in a "facility." Benza also rebutted statements made by Foxx’s daughter, Corinne Foxx.

PolitiFact searched for credible, on-the-record sourcing about Foxx’s condition and a COVID-19 reaction and turned up no supporting evidence.

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Corinne Foxx said May 12 that her father had been out of the hospital for weeks and was playing pickleball. She said they would host a new trivia music show together. 

On May 3, a text-only post on Foxx’s Instagram account said, "Appreciate all the love!!! Feeling blessed." 

Benza and Kirk are not the first to tie Foxx’s health to vaccines. We fact-checked a False claim that the actor suffered a brain bleed as a result of a COVID-19 vaccine. There is no evidence that COVID-19 vaccines cause aneurysms.

Publicly available evidence does not support the claim that Foxx is paralyzed and blind as a result of receiving a COVID vaccine. New details could emerge about his condition, but based on what we know now, we rate this statement False.