Sophia Michaels
The Jennifer Hudson Show audience doubled as a collective of songwriters on the daytime talk show’s latest episode. Alongside special guest Billy Porter, the host engaged the studio in a game of “You Say It, We’ll Sing It,” turning random suggestion responses from guests into impromptu songs.
When you have a voice as rich and soulful as Hudson or Porter, you can make almost anything sound good. An audience member’s instruction to their cat to stay off of the furniture was flipped into a choir-ready refrain from the pair, singing: “Get off the couch.”
The next audience member brought some flair to her response, inspiring a self-love anthem while answering a question about providing an excuse for being late to a party. “I’m not late,” Porter sang first, Hudson completing the lyric: “I’m worth waiting for.”
As everyone joined in, Porter realized they had a room full of musically gifted guests. Before they could ask the next question, the older woman who stepped down to inspire the next lyric launched into her own rendition of “I’m not late.”
Earlier in the episode, Porter and Hudson spoke about their earliest encounters with each other, which came by way of American Idol. “We were all fans of American Idol until the day that Simon Cowell – after you sang – said, ‘You’re untalented and I don’t understand why you’re in the competition,’” Porter remembered. “I never watched that show again.”
He added: “I was friends with the musical director, and I called up Michael Orland and I said, ‘You tell that Jennifer Hudson that she is magic. There is a hand on her life, the hand of God is on her life. And that man does not know what he’s talking about.”
