Who is Jennifer Hudson's father? Singer reveals discovering her father has 27 children when she was a teenager

Jennifer Hudson's fans may know of the tragic backstory of the singer's family, but she recently revealed something not many may be privy to—she has 27 siblings.

The EGOT may have grown up in a relatively small family, with only her late mother and brother plus her and her sister, Julia, in the house, but the singer has a pretty large extended family. She first revealed this during an interview with The Guardian in 2019, while on a press tour to promote her movie Cats.

Hudson mentioned that her father, Samuel Simpson, was a Greyhound bus driver, and has 27 kids. Talking about her siblings, she said:

"Eleven girls, 16 boys. I'm the youngest, or at least in the last two or three."

The singer then expressed her dream of meeting all of her siblings.

"[And] it was always my dream—because I love family—to have a giant table with all my siblings. Just imagine the giant table!"

Hudson has known of her extended family since she was a teenager.

In a recent appearance on the Your Mama's Kitchen: Conversations from the Heart to Home podcast, Hudson mentioned that she learned about her extended family at 16, and she's been trying to meet all her siblings since then.

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Jennifer Hudson shares more details about her extended family

The EGOT winner revealed more about her family in the finale episode of the Your Mama's Kitchen podcast with Michele Norris.

Jennifer Hudson mentioned wanting to look deeper into her family when she was 16, and while she has met some of them since, she's yet to meet all of her siblings.

Talking about her long-time dreams of reuniting her extended family with Norris, the singer shared:

"It was my dream to have all of us at this grand Thanksgiving or Christmas table, and we all sit and eat together—that was my goal at 16."

The singer-turned-talk-show-host noted that, besides the brother and sister she grew up with, she's also met up with six or seven of her other siblings. She added:

"We've found quite a few of us. And I'm the youngest of them all."

Jennifer Hudson further shared that her father had helped unite the siblings. She noted that when her grandmother on her father's side passed away, some of her siblings mentioned Hudson's existence to their other siblings, so they eventually met up.

Jennifer Hudson, who is a mother to 14-year-old David Daniel Otunga Jr., also shared about wanting her son to grow up around family. It's one of the reasons why they moved back to Chicago, to "have the surroundings of his family around him growing up."