Jenifer Lewis, the acclaimed actress and singer, known as "The Mother of Black Hollywood," experienced a life-altering accident during a trip to the Serengeti in Africa. This article delves into the details of the incident, the extent of her injuries, and her inspiring journey to recovery.
Jenifer Jeanette Lewis (born January 25, 1957) began her career appearing in Broadway musicals and worked as a back-up singer for Bette Midler before appearing in films Beaches (1988) and Sister Act (1992). Lewis is known unofficially as "The Mother of Black Hollywood" given her frequent matriarchal film and television roles. She also provided the voice for Mama Odie in Disney's animated feature The Princess and the Frog (2009), and Flo in Pixar's Cars series.
On television, Lewis starred as Lana Hawkins in the Lifetime medical drama Strong Medicine from 2000 to 2006. She also had recurring roles on sitcoms A Different World, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Girlfriends. Lewis became a Harlette, a back-up singer for Bette Midler, which led to Lewis' first TV appearances on Midler's HBO specials. She was cast as a backup singer in the Otto Titsling production number in Midler's film Beaches (1988). At the same time, Lewis was developing her nightclub act, The Diva Is Dismissed, an autobiographical comedy and music show in New York City cabarets. After Lewis relocated to Los Angeles, she began appearing in television sitcoms, including Murphy Brown, Dream On, In Living Color, Roc, Hangin' with Mr. Cooper and Friends. From 1992 to 1993, she played Dean Davenport in the sixth and final season of the NBC sitcom A Different World. She also had a recurring role as Will Smith's Aunt Helen in the NBC sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air from 1991 to 1996.
In 1992, Lewis was cast as one of the back-up singers to Whoopi Goldberg in the comedy film Sister Act. The following year, Lewis played the mother of Tupac Shakur's character in the film Poetic Justice, and as Zelma Bullock, Tina Turner's mother, in the biopic What's Love Got to Do With It starring Angela Bassett. Lewis has stated that she never auditioned to play Turner, but would have been thrilled to play the iconic singer. Lewis is only one year older than Bassett. For her performance, she received her first NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture nomination. In 1994, she followed with other comedic supporting roles, including Mrs. Coleman, the Unemployment Office lady, in Renaissance Man and as Whoopi Goldberg's sister in Corrina, Corrina. In 1996, Lewis appeared as Theresa Randle's telephone sex line boss in the film Girl 6. Later that year, she played Whitney Houston's character's mother in the film The Preacher's Wife, for which she received her second NAACP Image Award nomination.
In 2000, Lewis had a supporting role in the adventure drama film Cast Away, directed by Robert Zemeckis. In the same year, she began starring as Lana Hawkins on the Lifetime television medical drama Strong Medicine, for which she also performed the theme song. The show ended in February 2006. She also voiced Flo in Pixar's Cars franchise. She also had a recurring role as Veretta Childs (Toni's mother) in the UPN sitcom Girlfriends. In film, she appeared as Morris Chestnut's mother in the romantic comedy The Brothers (2001). In 2006, she had a featured role as the wedding planner in Tyler Perry's Madea's Family Reunion, and also appeared in Perry's comedy-drama Meet the Browns (2008) as Vera Brown. On April 22, 2008, Lewis replaced Darlene Love as Motormouth Maybelle in Broadway's Hairspray.
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On television, she guest-starred on That's So Raven and Boston Legal. In 2010, Clint Eastwood cast Lewis in his fantasy film Hereafter. The following year, she starred alongside Rosario Dawson and Tracee Ellis Ross in Five, for which she received her third NAACP Image Award nomination. She also co-starred in the short-lived NBC series The Playboy Club. She played Terrence J's overbearing mother in box-office hit Think Like a Man (2012) and its sequel Think Like a Man Too (2014). In 2013, she played Paula Patton's mother in the romantic comedy Baggage Claim. In 2014, Lewis was cast as Ruby Johnson, Anthony Anderson's character's mother in the ABC comedy series Black-ish. She was elevated to series regular status as of the second season. In 2024, Lewis competed in season eleven of The Masked Singer as "Miss Cleocatra" who later utilized an Egyptian throne prop. In 2024, Lewis was honored with a star in the St. Lewis has revealed that she's been engaged four times but never married. In 1990, Lewis was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. She originally hid her diagnosis, as she felt ashamed, but eventually came to embrace it after 17 years of therapy and 10 years of medication. In a 2014 interview, she said: "You have to look in the mirror...
Following the series finale of "Black-ish" in April 2022, Lewis embarked on a trip to Africa, with plans to retire and move back home. As part of her post-career celebration, she planned a trip to Africa with a friend.
In November 2022, Jenifer took a trip to Africa with some friends. But things quickly went awry, with her accident occurring not long after the group checked into their hotel in the Serengeti.
While on vacation in Tanzania in late 2022, the "Black-ish" star suffered a fall at her hotel in Serengeti. After a day of exploring nature in the Serengeti, Lewis was enjoying her surroundings when she fell off of her hotel balcony into pitch black darkness.
The 67-year-old entertainer said she fell 10 feet from a hotel balcony while she was visiting the famed safari destination in 2022. She told “Good Morning America” anchor Robin Roberts in an interview clip that aired Tuesday, “I was in shock.”
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The author and self-proclaimed “Mother of Black Hollywood” said she did not receive a room tour and explored the accommodations by herself. She should’ve been given a tour before detailing how she went to her balcony to check out the deck and infinity pool. She told Roberts a space of the balcony was not cordoned off and featured no warning signs.
When she was walking by her room's private pool in the dark, Jenifer fell 10 feet into a ravine of bounders and rocks, with her right hip taking the majority of the impact.
She thought she could just access it directly from the balcony -- but because it was so dark ... Jenifer says there was no warning sign that someone could fall there -- and goes on to describe the excruciating pain she felt.
“It was not safe,” Lewis told People a few weeks ago. “If you're on a deck, there should be no opening for you to fall, whether it's pitch black or pure sunshine. It was an unsafe deck. There was a dim light on the deck and had there been just a 10-ft. drop sign, a small caution sign…there was nothing.”
“So I'm walking, la-di-da, and boom, I was on the ground," she continued. "It was unbelievable because I didn't even know I was falling. I just went down like liquid. I am on the ground, everything hurts. I went to move and I couldn't move my body."
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Lewis said: “In pitch black, I didn’t know I was falling. Nothing would move.” “A lightning bolt went through my mind's eye ... in [the] pitch black, I didn't know I was falling," she recalled.
She says ... "My right hip took the impact. My shoulder went up against the stone. A lightning bolt went through my mind's eye. In pitch black, I didn't know I was falling. Jenifer continues ... "So I laid there and said, 'Move your body, baby. Come on Jenny, move your body.'"
Lewis said her shoulder and right hip took on the brunt of the impact. "Nothing would move. So, I laid there, I said, 'Move your body, baby. Come on, Jenny. Move your body,'" she recounted.
Despite the pain, Lewis said she urged herself to call out to a friend accompanying her on the trip. Eventually, though she said it hurt to breathe, Lewis was able to wake up her friend with her screams. However, when her friend used a flashlight to locate Lewis, she learned the actor was not alone in the dark. According to Lewis, a Cape buffalo and a lion were near where she had fallen.
Jenifer told Good Morning America that she thought she was going to die. “I didn't know you could be in that much pain and be alive," she said, referencing her good health while receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in July 2022. "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.”
She said she heard a lion roar while lying in the ravine. Lewis said that soon after her fall, while she waited for medical assistance, she reflected on her mortality.
“My last thought, because I am Jenifer Lewis, was, ‘What a headline,’” she said, laughing. "'The king ate the queen: Pieces of Jenifer Lewis' body being flown back to the states.'"
Eventually, people came to her aid -- but she was still in danger. Lewis said she was rescued by Maasai warriors, members of a Tanzanian tribe who fiercely protect local wildlife.
Despite her humor, Lewis said the fall left her in immense pain. The remote location of her trip complicated her rescue, and Lewis said Doctors Without Borders staff eventually airlifted her to Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, where she underwent surgery for a fractured acetabulum, the socket that holds the femur in place.
She was hospitalized for 16 days. Doctors Without Borders subsequently airlifted Jenifer to a hospital in Nairobi, Kenya. "As I laid in that helicopter, I was in and out of consciousness and all I could hear was my soul screaming, ‘Whatever this is, Jenny, you'll come back. If you're breathing, you'll come back,’” she told People.
She ended up fracturing her acetabulum, the socket of the hip bone that holds the femur in place. She needed a nine-hour surgery to replace her acetabulum with titanium, and three blood transfusions. She remained in the ICU for six days before getting hospitalized for an additional 10 days, per People. "The Nairobians were a beautiful, sweet people. They took such good care of me," Lewis recalled.
Still, she said her pain was unrelenting upon returning to the United States. Lewis detailed the scary fall she took while visiting the Serengeti.
Three months into Lewis' recovery, she said she stopped taking pain medications. "If there's pain let me feel it so I can fix it," she recalled thinking.
Jenifer says she's spent the better part of the past year recovering from her injury -- and now, she's ready to talk about it.
Jenifer Lewis is opening up about a serious accident from 2022.
On April 5, the Black-ish star revealed on The Tamron Hall Show that she struggled with severe health issues after her accident, which happened while she was on vacation nearly two years ago.
Jenifer Lewis Shares How 'The Masked Singer Helped Her Get Back to Herself After Africa Accident
While getting emotional, Jenifer shared that she had to relearn how to walk after her fall.
Initially, she couldn’t remember how to walk. Jenifer told Tamron that she forgot how to walk after her accident.
“I couldn't remember how to put one foot," she told Tamron, holding back tears. "I couldn't remember what to do!”
“In Nairobi, when they asked me to walk, you know the parallel bars? I couldn’t remember how to walk,” she told the talk show host while getting emotional. “I couldn’t remember how to put one foot. I didn’t even… I couldn’t remember what to do!
Lewis explained she struggled to overcome it but took steps forward little by little because she was determined to get better.
Jenifer said she sat in a wheelchair and sobbed.
She recalled sitting down in her wheelchair and sobbing until she heard herself say “You’ll get up. You’ll get up, and you’ll walk, or I’ll kill you myself. Now get up. Get up. You get up and you walk. Come on, baby.” And she walked.
and spent four days at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles for an evaluation. She was then transferred to the California Rehabilitation Institute for two weeks, People reports. After that, she spent 10 months in at-home physical therapy.
“All of my physical therapists, they couldn't even believe my attitude,” she told the outlet. “They would say to me, ‘Give me three more, Jennifer.’ I said, ‘No, let me do 10 more. 20 more.’” It is what's inside of you that will heal you. If you want to sit down and feel sorry for yourself, you're not going to heal. It's the getting up.”
Despite slow progress -- including months of rehabilitation and relearning how to walk -- she said she eventually became inspired by her own growth. "You can't put your sock on one day, but the next day you can," she said.
The 67-year-old shared that it took nearly a year of intensive physical therapy before she was fully recovered.
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