An Intimate Conversation With Jennifer Hudson (Part 1)

How well do you think you know Jennifer Hudson?
A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to sit down with J Hud for a very personal and intimate conversation.  Beforehand, I started writing down all the things that I wanted to know in regards to her career and personal life, but soon realized that I really didn’t know much about her as a person. Yes, I followed her journey on American Idol, and was cheering for her in my living room when she won an Oscar, won Grammys, sang the National Anthem at the Superbowl and became the third black woman (and first plus-sized African-American woman) to cover Vogue Magazine.  We’ve cheered with her through her triumphs, however, she’s also had to go through a very trying time of losing her family to a senseless tragedy in the public eye as well.
And although J Hud has all of these moments that we’ve shared with her,  she feels as though people do not know her as a person.
This became very apparent during the first few minutes of our sit-down chat in New York City. After dishing on why she chooses to live in her hometown of Chicago to maintain some normalcy in her life, she revealed that she feels as though she has been put in a box when it comes to her career. Some people have a hard time differentiating between Jennifer Hudson the person and Effie, the character she played in Dreamgirls, and that kind of stifle her creatively when it comes to the music.
Her “A ha “moment came after I suggested that some people may feel as though they don’t know her because she has been so private.  At the end of the day, artists would rather focus on their art and putting out good music than all of the personal stuff — but their fans want to know more about them outside of the music. How do artists find balance?
It was a really interesting conversation, and I loved that she asked me to ask her some personal questions after we had our moment!
Peep Part 1 below:
In part 2 (which is teased at the end of the interview), Jennifer dishes on how being a powerful woman can cause very awkward situations in your relationships sometimes, if she feels as though she has to dim her light for other people, and why she kept her pregnancy a secret. She also dishes on her relationship with her fiance David Otunga, how they met, and why it’s taking her so long to get married.