EGOT winner Jennifer Hudson has opened up about discovering that her father had 27 children and her desire to meet all of them.
The 42-year-old shared this revelation on the finale episode of the 'Your Mama’s Kitchen: Conversations from the Heart of the Home' podcast this week, where she talked about her family life. Talking about siblings, host Michele Norris said: “Your father had a big personality. You and your siblings found him at some point and discovered you had many more siblings?” “Yes, a lot of us. Apparently, he had 27 children,” Hudson shared.
A shocked Norris noted, “That’s a lot of children,” before Hudson explained that she had never met them all, "that's what we were always told." The EGOT winner said that when she found out about her siblings at 16, she wanted to delve deeper into her family, reports people.com. “It was my dream to have all of us at a grand Thanksgiving or Christmas table, and we all sit and eat together -- that was my goal at 16,” she explained.
Hudson said that she eventually met six or seven of these siblings, in addition to those she grew up with, Jason and Julia. “We found quite a few of us. And I'm the youngest of all of them,” she said. As for them finding out about her, Hudson said it was her father’s side of the family that helped unite the siblings she ended up meeting. “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.”