Papa was a rolling stone.
Those aren’t just the words to that famous Temptations song, they can also be applied to Jennifer Hudson‘s father, because he had over two dozen children.
Hudson spoke to the Guardian late last month and revealed that she has a total of 26 siblings. It was something the singer learned during her teenage years when she went looking for her father.
Hudson, her sister Julia and late brother Jason were raised in a single-parent household by their late mother, Darnell Donerson.
Tragically, Donerson, Jason and Hudson’s 7-year-old nephew Julian King were killed by Julia’s estranged husband William Balfour in 2008, a crime for which he’s now serving three life sentences.
As for her father, Hudson revealed some of the things she learned about him.
“He was a bus driver,” she said. “He drove Greyhound. He has a whole lot of kids, like, 27 … Eleven girls, 16 boys. I’m the youngest or at least in the last two or three.”
“And it was always my dream — because I love family — to have a giant table with all my siblings,” added the singer. “Just imagine the giant table. So when I turned 15, we went to go look for our dad, me and my sister.”
Hudson also said she and her sister received her mother’s blessing to look for their dad.
“Once we found him, he moved in with us and never left us until he died,” she explained. “His name was Sam. He was supposed to drive me to college, but he passed before he could. That was when I was 16. I’m almost 40 now.”
Elsewhere in the interview, The former “American Idol” contestant also said she’s met some of her siblings but not all of them.
Hudson is currently making the promotional rounds for her film “Cats,” which opens on Dec. 20.
