Jennifer Hudson Surprises Gay Couple With Wedding Song
Jennifer Hudson surprised a same-sex couple in Texas by performing a song during their wedding on Wednesday. The singer, a long-time LGBT rights advocate, stepped out from behind a curtain to sing “I Still Love You” – a track from her most recent LP, JHUD – for the grooms after they exchanged vows at the W Dallas-Victory hotel. The couple have been together 14 years and share four children, People reports.
“I’m very connected to the gay community, and it’s something I’m passionate about,” Hudson told the publication last year. The singer supported marriage equality by partering with W Hotels Worldwide and the Human Rights Campaign for their TURN IT UP FOR CHANGE program.
Last month, in a historic 5-4 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that “same-sex couples may exercise the fundamental right to marry” across the country.
“No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family,” wrote justice Anthony Kennedy. “In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.”
Hudson released JHUD, her third studio album, in October, and she’s remained busy with various projects in the interim – including her recurring role in the first season of Fox musical-drama series Empire. In February, she thrilled during Stevie Wonder’s all-star Grammy salute with her smoky, slow-burning rendition of the R&B master’s “All in Love Is Fair.” The following month, Oprah Winfrey’s OWN Network premiered “You Will,” a double-diva duet between Hudson and Jennifer Nettles.
Hudson will make her Broadway debut this fall, playing Shug Avery in a revival of The Color Purple.