Jamie Foxx delivered one of the most emotional moments of the night at the 2025 BET Awards, bringing his daughters—and much of the audience—to tears as he accepted the first-ever BET Ultimate Icon Award.
Appearing visibly moved, the Oscar winner reflected on his recent health scare and the powerful role his daughters, Corinne and Anelise, played in his recovery.
“I got to be honest, when I saw the ‘In Memoriam,’ I was like, ‘Man, that could’ve been me,’” Foxx said during his speech. “I don’t know why I went through what I went through, but I know my second chance. I’m not gonna turn it down. I have so much love to give.”
The new BET Ultimate Icon Award honors decades of groundbreaking work in entertainment, advocacy, and community impact. Foxx, who suffered a stroke in 2023 while filming Netflix’s Back in Action, was hospitalized for weeks and spent time in a coma—a near-death experience he now calls life-changing.
“You can’t go through something like that and not testify,” he shared.
The actor-singer took a moment to thank both of his daughters, who sat in the audience.
To Corinne, he said, “My beautiful Corinne, I cannot say enough about you. You’ve always taken a back seat to everything, but when you needed to drive, you drove. You made sure I was here.”
Then, turning to his younger daughter, he shared an especially emotional memory.
“My baby with the big hair… she hides under that hair because she’s got something special,” he said of Anelise. “When I was fighting for my life, they said we going to lose him because his vitals is bad. I didn’t want my 14-year-old to see me like that. But she overheard the conversation and snuck into my hospital room with her guitar and said, ‘I know what my daddy needs.’”
As she played, he said, his vitals began to improve.“The nurses came running in and said, ‘What did they give him?’ And my daughter said, ‘I got him.’ God is good,” Foxx said, drawing cheers and tears from the crowd.
He ended with a promise to keep pushing forward: “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.”
