Yahoo Lifestyle Jenifer Lewis Suffered A Devastating 10-Foot Fall, And Now She's Ready To Talk About It
The Mother of Black Hollywood is back "walking, talking, singing, and acting a damn fool."
In an exclusive Good Morning America interview, Jenifer Lewis sat with Robin Roberts to share her "astonishing and inspiring story from fear and pain to recovery."
While on a getaway in Africa, Jenifer fell 10 feet from an unprotected balcony.
"Did you think you were going to die?" Robin asked Jenifer, and she replied, "I did."
"I didn't know you could be in that much pain and be alive," Jenifer said. "I went from that high kick, standing on my star at the Hollywood Walk of Fame...five months later, I was on the ground of the Serengeti, and that same leg couldn't move."
The incident occurred in November 2022, several months after the release of her second memoir, Walking in My Joy: In These Streets. The hit show Black-ish had concluded after eight seasons, and Jenifer was celebrating her successful career, with over 300 appearances in movies and on television, by traveling around the world.
"I was going to retire, move back home," Jenifer told Robin. "I had traveled around the world, and life was wonderful."
Jenifer's Africa getaway took her from South Africa to Rwanda and the Serengeti. At the end of her first day at the hotel, she fell.
"When the sun sets in the Serengeti, there are no streetlights. It's pitch black," she said. "I was escorted to the lodge, my room, but I wasn't given a tour. I should have been given a tour."
"I laid out my safari clothes, and I saw the infinity pool out on my deck. So I went out; I was just taking in that I was back in the Serengeti once again. And I'm walking and all of a sudden, I had fallen 10 feet into a dry ravine full of boulders and stones and sharp rocks. There was a space that was not sectioned off, and there was no sign that said, 'Caution, 10-foot drop.'"
"My right hip took the impact. My shoulder went up against the stone," Jenifer continued. "A lightning bolt went through my mind's eye. In pitch black, I didn't know I was falling. Nothing would move. So I laid there and said, 'Move your body, baby. Come on, Jenny, move your body.'"
After calling for her traveling partner, Jenifer was rescued by Doctors Without Borders and airlifted from Tanzania to Kenya.
For months, Jenifer managed to keep the devastating incident under wraps, saying, "I didn't want y'all to know I had fallen until I could show you how I got back up."
"I have been humbled," Jenifer said. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do, but I do know that I have to earn being alive."
After many fans and celebrities showed concern for her condition, Jenifer posted a video to Instagram, captioned, "Don't worry about me, y'all! Auntie's back WALKING, talking, singing, and acting a damn fool!!!" — and now everyone is showing her more love.
Watch the full Good Morning America interview here.
