Finally speaking up, Jenifer Lewis discussed her near-death experience after a 10-foot fall in Africa. Following eight seasons of the comedy Black-ish, Jenifer concluded production on her biography Walking in My Joy in November 2022. When this incident occurred, everything was going great and she was ready to retire. She was shocked.
Jenifer Lewis’s Near Death Experience
In an interview with Robin Roberts of Good Morning America, the Think Like a Man actress discussed her injury that occurred on what was meant to be a once-in-a-lifetime journey to the Serengeti in Africa. She was traveling to Rwanda with her friends from Cape Town, and they were staying at a remote resort in the Serengeti that had an amazing perspective of the surrounding area. It was dusk when they arrived at the lodge because the only lights inside were streetlights.
She tumbled down the lodge stairs into a 10-foot dry gully full of jagged rocks and boulders when Lewis attempted to give her a tour of the property. Lewis had a close brush with wild animals on top of the terrifying fall. The actress was lying on the ground in shock and agony after she collapsed and was unable to yell. Lewis heard a lion roar as her friend discovered her and hurried to aid. After the event two years ago, Lewis has nearly fully recovered, and she even made a brief appearance in the Night Court revival on NBC.
Jenifer Lewis’s Personal Life
Lewis was born in the St. Louis neighborhood of Kinloch, Missouri, to a manufacturing worker father and Dorothy, a nurse’s assistant. Lewis is the eldest of seven siblings. When she was five years old, she joined her church’s choir. She went to college at Webster University in Webster Groves, Missouri, after graduating from Kinloch High School. 2015 saw her awarded an honorary degree from Webster. Lewis went to New York after graduating from college. Lewis disclosed that she has four engagements but has never gotten married. Charmaine Lewis is the adopted daughter of Jennifer Lewis. A 2022 edition of American Greed revealed how Lewis was duped by a charming scam artist in 2015. Lewis was given a bipolar illness diagnosis in 1990. After 17 years of therapy and 10 years of medicine, she gradually came to embrace her illness, which she had initially hidden out of shame.
Jenifer Lewis’s Career
With over 300 appearances in movies and television shows, Jenifer Lewis is one of the most recognizable faces in Hollywood. Jenifer is a popular TV personality best known for her funny role as “Ruby Johnson” in the smash comedy Black-ish, for which she was nominated for a 2016 Critics Choice Award. Think Like A Man, Think Like A Man Too, The Wedding Ringer, and Baggage Claim are some of Jenifer’s most recent films. In What’s Love Got to Do With It, she played Tina Turner’s mother, and in The Preacher’s Wife, she played Whitney Houston’s mother. Both roles are legendary performances.
In addition to starring alongside Matt Damon in Clint Eastwood’s Hereafter, Jenifer developed memorable personas for filmmaker Tyler Perry in Meet the Browns and Madea’s Family Reunion. Jenifer has had a successful career in Hollywood, but she has also had a broad and diversified career in music and theater. Jenifer has appeared in four Broadway productions, most notably Hairspray, where she played “Motormouth Mable.” When she performed with the New York Pops Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in 2014, she was met with an energizing standing ovation. In total, Jenifer has performed in over 200 gigs across four continents and 49 states.