Underdogs · 4 min read ·

Fantasia won Idol in 2004. Seventh-place Jennifer Hudson went on to an EGOT.

Fantasia won American Idol in 2004 and later played Celie on Broadway and on film. Seventh-place Jennifer Hudson completed an EGOT in 2022.

Fantasia Barrino

Fantasia Barrino · February 26, 2017

Photo: Kdrayf01 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Photo source.

Both singers came through American Idol in 2004. Fantasia won that season ahead of Diana DeGarmo; Hudson finished seventh. Hudson made her screen debut as Effie White in Dreamgirls and won the supporting actress Oscar for the role in February 2007.

Fantasia made 7 studio albums after Idol. Hudson made 4, with a 10-year gap.

One square per studio album after the show, by release year.

Fantasia Barrino7 studio albums
Jennifer Hudson4 studio albums

Fantasia played Celie on Broadway and in the 2023 film musical

Fantasia played Celie on Broadway from April 2007 to January 2008, joining the original Broadway production of The Color Purple as a replacement. She returned to Celie in the 2023 film musical The Color Purple, which opened in theatres in December 2023 as her feature film debut, with Oprah Winfrey as a producer. The Golden Globes nominated Fantasia in 2024 for female actor in a motion picture, musical or comedy, for The Color Purple.

Jennifer Hudson played Shug Avery and won a cast-album Grammy

Jennifer Hudson played Shug Avery in the later Broadway revival of The Color Purple, beside Cynthia Erivo as Celie and Danielle Brooks as Sofia. Hudson’s Broadway run, including previews, began in November 2015 and ended in May 2016. Her cast recording of The Color Purple won Best Musical Theater Album at the 2017 Grammys. Her earlier Grammy win was Best R&B Album for Jennifer Hudson in 2009, and Fantasia won Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for Bittersweet in 2011. The after-show Grammy totals are 2 for Hudson and 1 for Fantasia.

Jennifer Hudson

Photo: Staff Sergeant Bradley Lail, United States Air Force · Public domain · Photo source.

Producing credits brought Hudson an Emmy, a Tony and an EGOT

Hudson won a Daytime Emmy in 2021 for Outstanding Interactive Media for a Daytime Program, a producing credit for Baba Yaga. She was also a producer of A Strange Loop on Broadway, which won the Best Musical Tony in June 2022. With that Tony she had won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony: an EGOT. In August 2021, Hudson played Aretha Franklin in Respect and sang the film’s soundtrack, and in September 2022 she began hosting The Jennifer Hudson Show.

Fantasia had her own label and a Hudson album came out in 2024

Fantasia received a recording contract with 19 Entertainment and J Records after winning Idol, and J Records released Free Yourself in 2004, Fantasia in 2006 and Back to Me in 2010. RCA Records released Side Effects of You in 2013 and The Definition Of... in 2016, and Sketchbook came out in October 2019 through her own Rock Soul label. Hudson signed with Arista in November 2006; Arista and J Records released her self-titled debut in 2008 and I Remember Me in 2011. RCA released JHUD in 2014, and The Gift of Love came out through Interscope in October 2024.

Fantasia added a best-selling memoir, television and Broadway

In 2005, Fantasia published the memoir Life Is Not a Fairy Tale, which became a New York Times best seller, and in August 2006 she played herself in the Lifetime television film based on the memoir. She starred in the VH1 reality series Fantasia for Real for two seasons in 2010 and appeared as the first special guest star in the Broadway revue After Midnight from November 2013 until February 2014. Fantasia was also announced as a cast member of Tyler Perry’s The Gospel of Christmas, a holiday film for Netflix in its 2026 film slate.

The Brooks Atkinson Theatre exterior with its Waitress marquee.

Brooks Atkinson Theatre, New York · photo from 2019, during Waitress

Photo: Ajay Suresh from New York, NY, USA · CC BY 2.0 · Photo source.

Hudson coached on The Voice and joined a 2026 Dreamgirls revival

From 2017 to 2019, Hudson served as a coach on The Voice UK (series 6 to 8), where her act Mo Adeniran won series 6, and on the U.S. version of The Voice (seasons 13 and 15). In February 2026, Hudson was reported to have signed on as a producer of the Broadway revival of Dreamgirls, her third Broadway producing credit, with the revival set to open in fall 2026.

Profiles: Fantasia Barrino · Jennifer Hudson

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