Jennifer Hudson Becomes an EGOT Winner
Jennifer Hudson has officially joined one of the most exclusive clubs in the entertainment industry. This isn’t a club you can get into with money or fame alone, either. We’re talking about the elusive EGOT here. Hudson joins 16 other performers (not including those who have been given a special award or received one honorarily) who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony. Other winners include the likes of Audrey Hepburn, Mike Nichols, Whoopi Goldberg, John Legend, Mel Brooks, and Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Hudson kicked off her collecting spree back in 2006, when she was awarded an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in Dreamgirls. It wasn’t long before she got her first Grammy, in 2009, for her self-titled R&B album. Later on in 2017, she’d be awarded yet another Grammy for her work on The Color Purple. In 2021, she received a Daytime Emmy for an animated short by the name of Baba Yaga. To cap it off and finally earn the last necessary award, she was just handed a Tony for Best Musical for producing A Strange Loop.
When she was asked earlier in her career about what she’d do to ensure an EGOT win in the future, she had the following to say: “I should get two more dogs. I got a dog and named it Oscar, and then I won my Oscar. And then I got a dog and named it Grammy, and then I won my Grammy, so I think I should get some dogs and name them Emmy and Tony — and it’ll give me good luck, and I’ll win. [They’re] like my good luck charms.”
It’s unclear whether or not she actually followed through on the whole “good luck charm” thing, but if not, it's safe to thank massive talent and persistence.