Looking up, and ahead
In the year since three members of her family were brutally killed, Grammy and Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson has found ways to heal and start a new life.
And it appears the 28-year-old actress/singer is happy again.
She has gushed over her role as a new mother. She has started going out again, including an appearance at a New York gala just days ago.
And she’s poured herself into her work, from a gospel-tinged rendition of the national anthem at the Super Bowl months after the slayings to a “VH1 Divas” concert in New York last month.
“Her way of grieving is to put it all into her work and into her new baby,” says Ian Drew, senior music editor at Us Weekly magazine. “She’s celebrating what she has.”
Now she’s set to return to Chicago next month to film an ABC prime-time special, “Jennifer Hudson: I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” in which she’ll share memories of her childhood Christmases and the church where she started singing.
Last October, just as her career was really taking off with roles in movies like “Sex and the City” and “The Secret Life of Bees,” Hudson had to return home for the worst reason possible.
The bodies of her mother, Darnell Hudson Donerson, 57, and brother, Jason Hudson, 29, were found in the family’s home on the city’s South Side.
The body of her 7-year-old nephew, Julian King, was found days later in a sport utility vehicle on the city’s West Side, just over 10 miles away. All three had been shot.
Hudson has repeatedly declined to talk about publicly about the killings.
“She’s heartbroken,” says Bob Israel, who was friends with Jason. “They were a close-knit family.”
William Balfour, the estranged husband of Hudson’s sister, Julia, was charged with first-degree murder. He pleaded not guilty and remains jailed.
After the funeral and a star-studded memorial service, Hudson, who won an Oscar in 2007 for her supporting role in “Dreamgirls,” spent the next few months away from the public eye.
By February, she had launched back into work, filming a video for “If This Isn’t Love,” followed by the Super Bowl performance and a Grammy win for best R&B album for her self-titled debut CD.
These days, Hudson is focusing on her son, David, named after her fiance Daniel David Otunga.
She recently said she’s looking forward to seeing “who he becomes, who he takes after, what he decides to do, if he’ll sing.”
The birthday bunch
Actress Marion Ross is 81. Actress Nancy Cartwright (voice of Bart Simpson) is 52. Singer Speech (Arrested Development) is 41. Actor Adam Goldberg (“Saving Private Ryan”) is 39. Singer Katy Perry is 25. Singer Ciara is 24.