14 DAY TRIAL // In October 2008, Jennifer Hudson became personal acquainted with personal tragedy, just as things were finally starting to work for her. Her brother-in-law took a gun and murdered her mother, her brother and her nephew, sending her, her close friends and her fans into shock. For the first time since the tragic events, Jennifer is speaking out in a new VH1 piece, People magazine informs.
The singer has come a very long way since her days as an American Idol contestant. She has an Oscar under her belt for her performance in the critically acclaimed “Dreamgirls,” but she’s also become a mother and has effectively turned herself into a household name, an artist with a remarkable voice who is as versatile as she is talented. Having now made peace with the tragic events of almost two years ago, Jennifer is ready to talk about them in front of the camera.
“It’s all a blur, it was surreal. For almost two weeks straight... [I was] inside one room with just family and friends coming in and out. I prayed when I’d get up in the morning and prayed before I laid down at night. I was definitely thinking of my family when I was singing that song [‘You Pulled Me Through,’ Grammys, 2009]. I could hear my brother in my head, like, ‘Jennifer, you need to kill this, you need to get up and do it.’ I knew he would be disappointed if I didn’t do it justice,” the singer and actress says in VH’1 “Behind the Music,” as cited by People.
Her son also helped her move past the tragedy and to look into the bright future. “Today, ‘I feel like I’ve lived about three or four different lives,’ she says, adding that her 11-month-old son David (with her fiancé David Otunga) has helped her heal. Little David, ‘reminds me of my nephew,’ says Hudson, and he also helps her remember her mother. ‘In so many ways I channel her because she was such a great mom.’ Her son, she adds, ‘makes me feel like the most special person on earth. I want him to get the same love and the same upbringing my mother gave us’,” People writes, further citing Jennifer herself.
Right now, Jennifer Hudson is working on her sophomore album, though word on the street is that she’s not taking it in the direction her record label wants, as we were telling you back in May this year. Apparently, now that she’s proven that she can sing, Jennifer needs to come out with a material that is catchy and has therefore chart climbing potential – and her songs so far are not indicative of that, reports claim.