"Had you had the love my mother gave us, or the background that some have, then you would've stood a chance." "It's what he was taught, how he was brought up." "For the most part, it's not his fault," she said. Jennifer revealed that she’d forgiven Balfour for the killings, and didn’t even hold him fully responsible for what he’d done. In 2012, Jennifer and Julia spoke to Oprah Winfrey. “I tell David all the time, 'You saved my life'." "I went from being an aunt, having a mum and being a child to not having a mum, becoming a mum and raising my own child," she said. She told Glamour that having a child was the best therapy. Less than a year after the murders she gave birth to a son, David Otunga Jr. Jennifer took a few months’ break, then picked up her career where she’d left off. “You have the heart of an arctic night,” judge Charles Burns told him. He pleaded his innocence, but was given three life sentences. He’d been shot twice in the back of the head.īalfour was taken into custody and was charged with all three murders. Jennifer posted a photo of him and a message on her MySpace page: “Please keep praying for our family and that we get Julian King back home safely." Then came the horrible realisation that her son was missing.įor three days, no one knew what had happened to Julian. As she rang 911, she was hit by the thought that something might have happened to her brother. Then he drove off with seven-year-old Julian in Jason’s car. On October 24, 2008, the day after Julia’s birthday, Balfour drove past the house and saw some balloons, which he was convinced had been given to her by her new boyfriend. He threatened Julia, saying, “If you leave me, you will be the last to die. Balfour was told to leave the family home, where Julia lived with her mum Darnell and her brother Jason. “We did not likeĪfter a year of marriage, Julia wanted out. “None of us wanted her to marry him,” she later said in court. They got married, and Balfour became a self-described “proud parent” to Julia’s young son from a previous relationship, In 2006, Balfour was out on parole when he reconnected with Jennifer’s sister Julia, a single mum who drove a school bus for a living. His long list of offences included carjacking, drug dealing and attempted murder. Then her life was ripped apart by William Balfour.īalfour, who’d gone to the same primary school as the three Hudson siblings, grew up with a criminal dad, and started getting into trouble with the police from the age of 14. She got engaged to David Otunga, a professional wrestler and lawyer. She filmed a role in the Sex And The City movie. Suddenly, everyone was talking about Jennifer Hudson. “I didn’t think I was going to win,” she said. She beat out Cate Blanchett to the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, posing afterwards with her widowed mum, who she’d brought to the ceremony with her. Up against almost 800 other women, including Idol winner Fantasia, Jennifer got the part. They asked Jennifer to audition for the role of Effie White, who sings the show-stopper “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going”. The year after Idol, the casting agency for the movie version of the musical Dreamgirls came knocking. Listen to Mamamia's daily entertainment podcast, The Spill. “In any audition I walk in, before Idol and after Idol, regardless of what happens, I know I’m walking away with my gift and “I didn’t know how or when, but I knew there was going to be something huge,” she told the Sun-Times. That could have been the last anyone heard of Jennifer Hudson. Elton John declared the voting to be “incredibly racist”. She was controversially eliminated in seventh place, after ending up in the bottom three with Fantasia Barrino and La Toya London. But despite her powerhouse voice, she didn’t win Idol that year. “I remember sitting in the bathroom of my house at seven years old, crying and saying, ‘Nobody will listen to me, so I’ll listen to myself sing'.”īy the time she tried out for American Idol in 2004, singing an Aretha Franklin song, Jennifer had a job as a cruise ship singer. “I’d ask for solos in church and they’d give me the runaround,” she told the Chicago Sun-Times in From the age of seven, singing was all she wanted to do. Jennifer grew up in a churchgoing family in Chicago, one of three children born to bus driver Samuel Simpson and Darnell Donerson. She’s been able to forgive the man who killed her family and stay focused on her career, because she knows that’s what her mum and brother would have wanted. Those things that Jennifer has been through are the murders of her mum, brother and nephew, on one terrible day in 2008.
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