Gena Tew Weighs in on Jamie Foxx Clone Rumors

Social-media influencer Gena Tew has defended Jamie Foxx amid outlandish claims online that the actor has been cloned after his mysterious health scare.

In early April, it was revealed that Oscar-winning Ray star Foxx, 55, had been hospitalized over an unspecified "medical complication." Following weeks of speculation, his daughter, Corinne Foxx, shared a statement in May that the actor was out of the hospital and "recuperating." Foxx spoke himself on Saturday, when he took to Instagram to share a video update on his condition.

"I went through something that I thought I would never ever go through," Foxx said. "I know a lot of people were waiting or wanting to hear updates. But, to be honest with you, I just didn't want you to see me like that, man... I didn't want you to see me with tubes running out of me. And trying to figure out if I was going to make it through."

Foxx continued by thanking his family and medical staff for saving his life. In addition, he refuted previous rumors that he was left blind or paralyzed, but did say he went "through hell and back."

After the video was released, a faction of social-media users analyzed Foxx's appearance. Some subscribed to the unfounded conspiracy theory that the actor's video featured a clone, rather than the screen star himself.

Influencer and model Tew has amassed a large following on TikTok through sharing details of her AIDS journey. She this week shared a video on the platform in which she dismissed the speculation surrounding Foxx.

"A lot of y'all need to leave Jamie Foxx alone, calling him a clone and [saying] something's wrong with his face," Tew said in the clip.

Comparing Foxx's experiences to her own health issues, she added: "Look at me, for example. Look at how I looked in my past videos, when I was on death's door and then me now." Tew, who went public with her AIDS diagnosis in 2022, illustrated her point by showing a photo of herself when her weight had plummeted.

"That's what happens to your face when you're sick and ill," Tew said, before ridiculing additional speculation over Foxx's hairline.

"I don't know, people are crazy," Tennessee-based Tew added. "Not everybody's a clone, y'all. Not everybody is satanic."

Ice-T also spoke out against the speculation over the weekend. Quote-tweeting a post questioning Foxx's appearance, the rapper and actor wrote: "People would rather believe that Jamie is now a Clone or [artificial intelligence], than the man was just seriously sick and damn near died... [Because] he doesn't look EXACTLY the same??? YOU look different after a bad cold! [Shaking my head] weirdos.."

Newsweek has contacted a representative of Foxx via email for comment.

In early June, a spokesperson for Foxx shut down an allegation that the star had been left "paralyzed and blind" from taking a COVID-19 vaccine.

After TMZ reported that the screen star's relatives were spotted visiting him in a Chicago physical rehabilitation facility, on May 30, podcast host and gossip columnist A.J. Benza said he knew exactly what happened to Foxx. He gave his source as "somebody in the room."

Appearing on the Ask Dr. Drew podcast, Benza added: "Jamie had a blood clot in his brain after he got the shot. He did not want the shot, but the movie he was on, he was pressured to get it. The blood clot in the brain caused him at that point to be partially paralyzed and blind."

The claim has been fact-checked by Newsweek, and was found to be wholly unverified. However, the rumor still went viral online, with a number of high-profile Twitter users circulating it.

In response to the speculation, a spokesperson for Foxx told NBC in an emailed statement that the claim was "completely inaccurate."

Multiple medical journals have said that, while this is extremely rare, some COVID-19 vaccinations can cause blood clots. By contrast, Yale Medicine states that researchers have "seen a strong association between blood clots and COVID-19 infection itself."

Yale Medicine added that the AstraZeneca-Oxford and Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines were associated with a slightly elevated risk of developing blood clots. However, COVID-19 mRNA vaccines, like those from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, were not known to have any such side-effects.

The government's Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System said that, of about 18 million people who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, there were 60 cases of thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (a clotting disorder) reported, and nine people died.

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is no longer available in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.