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.

Throughout her career, she has received various accolades for her works in recorded music, film, television, and theater.

Hudson became the youngest woman and second African-American woman to receive all four of the major American entertainment awards: Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony (EGOT).

Hudson was born on September 12, 1981, in Chicago, Illinois.

She is the third and youngest child of Darnell Donerson and Samuel Simpson.

She was raised as a Baptist in Englewood 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.

Hudson rose to fame in 2004 as a finalist on the third season of American Idol, placing seventh.

She was released from her five-year contract with Righteous Records so that she could appear on American Idol in 2004.

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 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.

She made her film debut as Effie White in the musical Dreamgirls (2006), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, becoming the youngest African-American to win in a competitive acting category.

In September 2006, Hudson performed the song, "Over It", live on Fox Chicago Morning News.

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.

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."

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.

After signing to Arista Records, Hudson released her self-titled debut studio album in 2008, which was certified Gold in the United States and the United Kingdom, and won the Grammy Award for Best R&B Album.

Meanwhile, her other acting roles include the films Sex and the City (2008), The Secret Life of Bees (2008), Winnie Mandela (2011), Black Nativity (2013), Sing (2016), Cats (2019) and Respect (2021), the television shows Smash (2012), Empire (2015) and Confirmation (2016), and her Broadway debut with the musical The Color Purple.

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.

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.

Hudson's subsequent studio albums, I Remember Me (2011) and JHUD (2014), both charted within the top ten of the Billboard 200, with the former also being certified Gold in the US.

She also received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2013.

Hudson also contributed as a coach on the UK and the US version of The Voice from 2017 up to 2019, becoming the first female coach to win the former.

In 2022, she began hosting a talk show, The Jennifer Hudson Show.

Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2020.