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Jennifer Hudson’s unshakeable spirit and confidence has certainly been tested by some of the events in her life, but she credits her new outlook on life to her 6-year-old son, David.
In an interview with Glamour magazine, she opened up about how David “saved her life,” following the 2008 murders of her mother, nephew and brother at the hands of her sister’s estranged husband, William Balfour.
Hudson says she’s extremely guarded when it comes to discussing those tragedies.
“It’s frustrating as hell to me to have somebody who ain’t lost nothing try to talk to me about it,” she said. “I want to say, ‘Don’t even bother, because you know nothing.’ But you never know how much you can go through until you’re going through it.”
A year after the murders, for which Balfour is serving three consecutive life sentences without parole, Hudson and fiancé David Otunga welcomed a baby boy into their lives.
“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 tells the mag.
Now, she’s navigating being a mom and a thriving career, while still dealing with the depth of the tragedies in her life. In an upcoming Spike Lee film she stars in, titled Chiraq, Hudson plays a woman who loses her daughter to a stray bullet. The character, Hudson says, has a deeply personal relationship to her.
“There’s a scene where we’re all holding up boards with [photos of] our slain children on them. I turned around, and it’s a sea of real women [as extras] holding pictures of children they actually lost,” she said. “I’m a character holding a picture of a little girl, but in real life I have the same story.”
Chiraq hits theaters in December. For more of Hudson’s interview with Glamour, click here.
And check out Hudson’s funny vocal take on common warnings and sayings in the video below.
