DJ Jazzy Jeff credits his wife Lynette
for saving his life.
One of the times I dozed off and I woke up
and my wife was staring at me and I was like,
well, what's wrong?
Why are you looking at me like that?
And she said, I know how you breathe.
I know how you sleep, and this is not it.
And took my temperature and was like, nope, we're out.
We're out.
The legendary artist believes
he came down with COVID-19 and early March.
Jazzy Jeff, whose real name is Jeff Townes,
was on a gig in Idaho then.
By the time he got back home to Delaware,
he noticed something was off.
My temperature started going up,
but it started to get to a point that I would doze off
and think that I'd slept the entire night
and I would wake up
and wonder why the movie I was watching
when I'm dozed off was still on,
only to realize I've only slept for 12 minutes.
Wow.
Just during that doctor's visit Lynette took him to,
they didn't test him for COVID-19 but for the flu.
That's when they found pneumonia in both of his lungs
and put him on strong antibiotics.
They told him if it got any worse,
he'd need to go to the ER.
So now my brain is playing
all kinds of weird tricks on me.
I had pretty much four or five really, really bad days
before I think the antibiotics kicked in
and I started to eat and started to taste my food,
'cause I said the taste and smell.
It was about that time Jeff realized
he may have contracted the virus.
I am all jacked up right now just because of all of this.
I've been sick before.
That was the first time that I had two moments of me
being sick that I said to myself,
wow, this is how I'm going out.
I really thought I might not make it through this
and thank God every time my brain kind of went there,
my wife just so happened to walk in the room
and she caught me and, no, no, no, we're not doing that.
We're not doing that.
And she kind of pulled me out.
Word on the street you was down for a couple of days.
I was out of breath every time
I had to go to the bathroom.
Wow.
Yeah, that was scary, 'cause Lynette doesn't panic
and she called me with the panic vibe.
So I just immediately called D-Nice to see
if he would be available to...
(laughs)
[Stephanie[ Jeff says Lynette was sick,
but her symptoms were far milder.
She'd only lost her sense of taste
and had a mild cough for two days.
He says they plan on getting tested.
It was funny because me being sick has made me
take this very serious.
A reason why I started DJing every Saturday online
is to preach to people.
I am only playing for the people that are in their house.
The only way that we're going to get rid of this is
everybody do what they're supposed to.
Every week Jeff spins
his magnificent house party from his home studio,
hoping to encourage everyone to keep their tails at home.
It's the magnificent lunch mix.
Celebrating the music from 1996, y'all.
I realized that my job as a DJ is
I'm a servant of the people.
We have never had as many people sitting in one place
in the world all at the same time.
(scratching)
So he teamed back up with his group mate
and former castmate will Smith for an impromptu concert.
♪ Literary genius and a superior beat creator ♪
♪ Have come together ♪
♪ And we made a musical competition ♪
♪ Which we think is the remedy ♪
♪ To cure all the dance floors that's empty ♪
♪ You wanna dance ♪
♪ We got what you want ♪
♪ Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince bustin' out ♪
♪ With the brand new funk ♪
His first time out of the house
was last week, for what would be a stressful trip
to the supermarket with his wife.
We got in the car and we started driving and she started
explaining it to me like, yup, I have my hand sanitizer.
I wiped the cart down and do this and you got to do this and
such and such, and her talking got me so much anxiety.
I was like, turn the car around and take me back.
I can't do all of that.
I'm not physically prepared for that,
and she was like, it's gonna be okay.
The crazy thing about me is I do
160 dates a year.
How can I fathom going into a club?
Have you been seeing a therapist
or was that part of your regular routine before?
Is that something you're going to consider now?
It was part of my regular routine before.
I have not since all of this.
It definitely is going to have to be something
because the way this is embedded.
And thank goodness he's here to celebrate
the 30th anniversary of one of TV's most legendary shows.
You know the theme.
♪ Now this is a story all about how ♪
♪ My life got turned upside down ♪
First of all, to get to a 30th anniversary,
we're just kind of like, wow.
Will and I had some really, really big stuff planned.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
Maybe something'll happen and we can still kind of do it.
(piano music)
(Will yelling)
The cast recently had a Zoom reunion
and paid tribute to the bank's patriarch, Uncle Phil.
The first couple of times
that I'm seeing clips of James.
After James Avery passed away in 2013.
How was the fresh Prince reunion?
Was it as fun for you to participate in
as it was for us to look at it?
We had never, all of us gotten together.
I've seen almost everyone at some point in time,
but it's never been a thing that we can all corral each
other together and sit down and have that conversation and
it was really nice.
I can't remember the last time we were together.
It might've been the last episode, all of us.
So to have everybody, even if it was on a Zoom call,
just to talk.
It's crazy that Tatiana has two kids.
She was a kid when she was on the show.
You're just like, wow, you have two kids of your own.
It was definitely good to see everybody
and take that trip down memory lane.
One that almost didn't happen,
because Jeff didn't even want to be on the Fresh Prince.
Man, I'm starvin'.
When do we eat here?
We eat here later.
You eat here never.
(audience laughs)
I did not want to do this at all.
Early on, when we got the show, Will asked me to do
the first episode.
I was in the first episode.
I wasn't in the pilot.
And I said no.
This wasn't what I wanted to do.
I was solely music,
and the way he presented it to me was listen,
they want you to do three episodes.
If you do one and you like it,
you got two to look forward to,
and if you do one and you hate it,
you only have two to do.
So I've decided to do it.
Ah, the joke's on you, Mr. Banks.
You can't throw me out 'cause I'm already outside.
Audiences around the globe are glad he did,
including this reporter.
And I used to get so upset,
because they used to treat you so bad.
(laughs and speaks indistinctly)
Like damn, he didn't do anything.
All he wants to do is treat Hillary right.
That's it.
And aboard the wheels of steel is the undisputed greatest
DJ alive, DJ Jazzy Jeff right here.
For three decades of memories,
laughter, and nostalgia.
♪ Summer, summer, summertime ♪
Thankfully DJ Jazzy Jeff and his tight knit family
are here to stay.
Do you get to be like, I'm tired of everyone in this house
because your wife essentially saved your life?
Once I came through this and I realized how much I'm here
because of my wife, she can do anything she wants.
I'm fine.
For inside edition.com, I'm Stephanie Officer.