Jennifer Hudson: Aretha Franklin sang to me during our last-ever phone call

Jennifer Hudson has revealed Aretha Franklin “sang to [her]” during their last-ever phone call.

The 39-year-old singer and actress plays the late music icon in the new biopic, ‘Respect’, and has recalled the final phone call she had with Aretha just a week before her passing in 2018.

Speaking during an appearance on ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’, she said: “She told me what she had eaten. I don’t remember what that meal was, and then she sang to me on that call. I can’t remember the song. It was by the Isley Brothers and she said, ‘Jennifer, now that’s the Isley Brothers,’ and I said, ‘Yes, ma’am, I know.’

“And then, my son is a cook, too, so I ended up telling her about him cooking and sending her a video. Because she was so present. She always knew what was going on, even in my life.”

Jennifer also said she “was one of the last people to hear from” Aretha before she died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 76.

Meanwhile, Jennifer recently said she feels “a lot of pressure” about playing the ‘A Natural Woman’ singer on screen.

She said: “That’s a lot, a lot, a lot of pressure!

“Everyone is counting down and I’m like, ‘Please don’t tell me! I don’t want to know, that’s enough pressure.’

“Enough with her being like, ‘Jennifer do this.’ But that’s that women power, that’s that empowerment, like if she passed the torch and she said, ‘Jennifer you can do it,’ that gives me the strength and the encouragement to try.”

Jennifer released ‘Here I Am (Singing My Way Home)’, an original song from the film’s soundtrack, in June, and said she hoped she was able to do Aretha’s roots justice with the track.

She said: “You should feel the church in it, the spirit, the soul.

“I wanted to make sure that was the base and the premise of everything because Aretha was the gospel … I’m so happy to hear that [it sounds like Aretha] because that was my sentiments exactly.”