Jennifer Hudson

Jennifer Kate Hudson (born September 12, 1981), also known by her nickname J.Hud, is an American singer, actress, producer, and talk show host. Having received numerous accolades for her work in music, film, television, and theater, Hudson became the youngest woman and third African-American recipient of all four major American entertainment awards: Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony (EGOT) in 2022. She was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2013, and Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2020.

Hudson rose to fame in 2004 as a finalist on the third season of the reality series American Idol, wherein she placed seventh. She signed with Arista Records to release her self-titled debut studio album (2008), which peaked at number two on the Billboard 200 and won Best R&B Album at the 51st Annual Grammy Awards. Her second and third studio albums, I Remember Me (2011) and JHUD (2014), both peaked within the top ten of the Billboard 200; the latter was released by RCA Records. She signed with Interscope Records to release her fourth album, The Gift of Love (2024), her first solo project in a decade.

She made her film debut as Effie White in the musical Dreamgirls (2006), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and became the youngest African-American recipient of the award. She has since portrayed Aretha Franklin in the musical biopic Respect (2021) and acted in films such as Sex and the City (2008), The Secret Life of Bees (2008), Winnie Mandela (2011), Black Nativity (2013), Sing (2016), Cats (2019), and Goat (2026). She also has appeared in shows such as Smash (2012), Empire (2015) and Confirmation (2016).

On stage, she acted in the Broadway musical revival The Color Purple (2015) and won the Tony Award for Best Musical as a producer of A Strange Loop (2022). Hudson has served as a coach on both the UK and the US versions of the reality series The Voice from 2017 to 2019, and became the first female coach to lead a winning team on the former. In 2022, her talk show, The Jennifer Hudson Show, premiered.

Early life

Hudson was born on September 12, 1981 in Chicago, Illinois. She is the third and youngest child of Darnell Donerson and Samuel Simpson, a Greyhound Lines bus driver. She, her older sister Julia, a school bus driver, and her brother Jason Hudson, were raised primarily by their mother. Her father was absent from her childhood until, with the blessing of her mother, she went looking for him at age 14. When Hudson found her father, she learned that he had 26 other children. She has stated she has still not met all of her half-siblings.

She was raised as a Baptist in Englewood on the South Side. and attended Dunbar Vocational High School, from which she graduated in 1999. She cites Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin, and Patti LaBelle as her overall biggest influences and inspiration. She has also credited Mariah Carey as being one of her musical "heroes". At age 7 she got her start in performing by singing with the church choir and doing community theater with the help of her late maternal grandmother, Julia. She enrolled at Langston University but she left after a semester due to homesickness and unhappiness with the weather, and registered at Kennedy–King College.

In January 2002, Hudson signed her first recording contract with Righteous Records, a Chicago-based independent record label. She was released from her contract with Righteous Records so that she could appear on American Idol in 2004.

Career

2004–2005: American Idol

Hudson auditioned for the third season of American Idol in Atlanta. After commenting that she had been singing on Disney Cruise Lines (aboard the Disney Wonder) for the past few months as one of the Muses from Hercules, judge Randy Jackson told her, "We're expecting more than a cruise ship performance from you." Hudson received the highest number of votes in the "Top 9" after her performance of Elton John's "Circle of Life" on April 6, 2004, but two weeks later, she was eliminated during the "Top 7" show after performing Barry Manilow's, "Weekend in New England". In May 2009, MTV listed Hudson as the sixth greatest contestant in American Idol history and noted her exit was the most shocking of all time. In May 2010, the Los Angeles Times claimed Hudson to be the third greatest Idol contestant in the history of the show, placing behind season one winner Kelly Clarkson and season four winner Carrie Underwood respectively.

Performances

2006–2007: Dreamgirls and breakthrough

In one of her first appearances on a record, Hudson is featured in a duet, "The Future Ain't What It Used to Be", on Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose. In September 2006, Hudson performed the song, "Over It", live on Fox Chicago Morning News. In the interview she stated the song would be included on her debut album, to be released in early 2007; however, this was before she was signed to a record label. In November 2006, Hudson signed a record deal with Arista Records. Hudson also recorded a song she co-wrote with Bill Grainer and Earl Powell called "Stand Up", which was available for preview on her fan website. The track was produced by Chicago natives Powell and Herman Little III, who also arranged the song. The power-ballad would later become available on the deluxe edition of Hudson's self-titled album as a bonus track.

In November 2005, Hudson was cast in the role of Effie White for the film adaptation of the musical Dreamgirls, which also starred Jamie Foxx, Beyoncé Knowles and Eddie Murphy. The role marked Hudson's debut screen performance. She won the role over hundreds of professional singers and actresses, including Fantasia Barrino. Filming of Dreamgirls began on January 9, 2006, and the film went into limited release on December 25, 2006, and national release on January 12, 2007. Hudson has won particular praise for her show-stopping onscreen rendition of the hit song, "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going", the signature song of the role, which had earlier been recorded, and had already reached the status of musical standard, because of the definitive performance of Jennifer Holliday. The New York Observer described Hudson's performance of the song as "five mellifluous, molto vibrato minutes that have suddenly catapulted Ms. Hudson... into the position of front-runner for the best supporting actress Oscar". Newsweek said that when moviegoers hear Hudson sing the song, she, "is going to raise goose bumps across the land." Variety magazine wrote that Hudson's performance "calls to mind debuts like Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl or Bette Midler in The Rose, with a voice like the young Aretha". "Love You I Do" was nominated for the 2007 Academy Award for Best Original Song and won the 2008 Grammy Award for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media.

As Effie White, Hudson has garnered 29 awards from film critics as Best Supporting Actress and Breakthrough Performer of 2006. She won the Golden Globe Award as Best Actress in a Supporting Role. In addition, she has been named Best Supporting Actress by the Broadcast Film Critics Association and also by the Screen Actors Guild. After seeing Hudson's performance in Dreamgirls, Simon Cowell taped a congratulatory message to her, which aired on The Oprah Winfrey Show. With the March 2007 issue, Jennifer Hudson became the third African-American celebrity and the first African-American singer to grace the cover of Vogue magazine. On February 11, 2007, the 60th British Academy Film Awards were held in London, but Hudson was not there to accept her BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. The BAFTA Award went missing and Hudson did not receive her award until April 22, 2011, when it was presented to her on the Graham Norton Show.

On February 25, 2007, she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the film. Later in 2007, the mayor of her home town, Chicago, Richard M. Daley, declared March 6 as "Jennifer Hudson Day". She was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on June 18, along with 115 other individuals for 2007. Entertainment Weekly put her performance on its end-of-the-decade, "best-of" list, saying, "Sure, Beyoncé's performance was great. And Eddie Murphy's was impressive. But there was really only one reason we all rushed to see 2006's Dreamgirls: Jennifer Hudson's soul-to-the-rafters rendition of the classic 'And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going'. When she sang 'You're gonna love me,' it wasn't just a lyric — it was a fact."