Jennifer Hudson is opening up about her big family.
During a Wednesday, June 19, appearance on the “Your Mama’s Kitchen” podcast, Hudson, 42, said she didn’t know how many siblings she had until she was a teenager.
“Apparently [my dad] had 27 children,” she said, noting that she has never met all of her half-siblings.
“It was my dream to have all of us at this grand Thanksgiving or Christmas table, and we all sit and eat together — that was my goal at 16,” Hudson recalled. “We found quite a few of us. And I’m the youngest of all of them.”
The singer shared that her dad’s side of the family played a role in connecting the siblings.
“When my grandma on his side passed, my siblings over there were like, ‘Y’all got a sister that can really sing, you should meet her,'” she said. “And eventually we all came together.”
Before she went looking for her dad as a teenager and discovered her large clan, Hudson was raised by her mom, Darnell Donerson, alongside sister Julia and brother Jason. Hudson tragically lost Darnell, Jason and nephew Julian in 2008 after her sister’s estranged husband, William Balfour, shot and killed them. Balfour received three life sentences plus 120 years in prison in May 2012.
Hudson has said that her now-14-year-old son, David Jr., who was born one year after the murders, helped her heal.
“I went from being an aunt, having a mom and being a child to not having a mom, becoming a mom and raising my own child,” she told Glamour in 2015. “I tell David all the time, ‘You saved my life.’”
Hudson shares her son with ex-fiancé David Otunga. The former couple split in 2017. Hudson has since moved on with Common, whom she met in 2022 while filming their movie Breathe. After almost two years of romance speculation, the pair confirmed their relationship in January when Common, 52, appeared on an episode of The Jennifer Hudson Show.
“I’m in a relationship that is with one of the most beautiful people I’ve met in life,” Common said on the show, not naming Hudson outright but hinting that his girlfriend is an EGOT winner and has her own talk show. “She’s smart, she loves God, she has something real down-to-earth about her. She’s talented.”
Common then playfully asked Hudson whether she was seeing anyone.
“I’m dating this brother, and I am very happy,” she replied.
One month later, Jimmy Kimmel asked Hudson about the relationship reveal during an episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!
“Is that what you gathered? Because I thought he was dating Whoopi Goldberg,” Hudson jokingly replied. Goldberg, 68, is an EGOT winner just like Hudson and had her own titular talk show from 1992 to 1993.
