WATCH WHAT HAPPENS LIVE WITH ANDY COHEN -- Episode 19147 -- Pictured: Jenifer Lewis -- (Photo by: Charles Sykes/Bravo via Getty Images)
Jenifer Lewis is seemingly recovering well after a scary incident while vacationing in Africa. Earlier this month, the ‘Black-ish’ star revealed that she fell from a 10-foot balcony in 2022.
Lewis spoke about the near-death experience and her tough recovery journey on ‘ABC News’ with Robin Roberts. She had kept the incident under wraps until this sit-down. Her reason for doing so?
“I didn’t want y’all to know I had fallen until I could show you how I got back up,” Lewis said.
A week after the interview, on Friday (March 23), she shared a video update with fans. Taking to her Instagram feed, Jenifer Lewis first appeared using a walker while strolling down a sidewalk. At first, she appears to have a ‘struggle’ look on her face, but that quickly changes when she lifts and throws the walker to the side.
She then continues to walk, bussing a couple of lil’ moves to Saucy Santana’s ‘Walk’ song. Meanwhile, in her caption, she reassured her fans that all was well with Auntie!
“Don’t worry about me y’all! Auntie’s back WALKING, talking, singing and acting a dam fool!”
Peep her health update video below.
As mentioned, the story about Jenifer Lewis’ fall from a balcony in November 2022 broke last Tuesday. The 67-year-old actress described the past year of her life as “the hardest.” She told Robin Roberts that she thought she was going to die.
“I didn’t know you could be in that much pain and be alive,” Jenifer shared. “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.”
At the time of the fall, Jenifer Lewis was having a good year. Besides the Hollywood star, she had also wrapped the eighth season of ‘Black-ish’ and released her memoir ‘Walking in My Joy: In These Streets,’ per PEOPLE.
Auntie Jen told Roberts that she had planned to retire, move back home to Missouri and that life felt “wonderful,” especially after her world travels.
Then, one additional “trip of a lifetime” to Africa with friends changed her trajectory. Her travels on the continent included a journey from Cape Town to Rwanda.
“We’re having a good time, we’re feeling a lot. We’re going where the real people are,” Jenifer said, revealing she even spent time in the mountains with gorillas.
After arriving in Serengeti, Tanzania, she checked into a hotel. Though she was escorted to her room, she did not get a tour of it. By nightfall, she said, it was pitch black due to the lack of street lights in the city. When she stepped outside her lodge onto a balcony, her trip went from wonderful to her life being in danger.
“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.’ “
She was “in shock.” Though it “was hard” to take a “big breath to scream” that’s what she did, calling for her friend Laurie.
“My right hip took the impact. My shoulder went up against the stone,” she said. “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 her friend flashed a light on her, she noted a Cape buffalo just a few feet away and said she heard a lion roar. At that point, all she could think about was a headline about being eaten alive. As for how she’s feeling now, Jennifer Lewis is “humbled” and feels like she has “to earn being alive.”
Watch a portion of the sit-down below.
The full interview is now available on Hulu.
