The singer was engaged to David Otunga for nine years and has been with Common since 2022. Neither relationship has ended in marriage.
Jennifer Hudson has never been married. The singer, who completed her EGOT in 2022 and launched a daytime talk show the same year, has one engagement behind her, to the wrestler and lawyer David Otunga. It ran nine years and never reached a wedding. Her boyfriend now is the rapper and actor Common, and the two are still together.
He talked about her again this month. Promoting the third season of the Apple TV drama Silo, Common was asked to name the person he trusts most in his life. He took a while to answer, then put Hudson first and his mother second. “My partner, my lady,” he said. “Jennifer Hudson. She’s one of the most trustworthy people in my life.”
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An engagement that never reached a wedding
Otunga proposed on 12 September 2008, Hudson’s 27th birthday, with a Neil Lane ring. They had been dating less than a year.
Six weeks later, her mother, Darnell Donerson, and her brother, Jason Hudson, were found shot dead at the family home in Chicago. Her seven-year-old nephew, Julian King, was found dead in a car three days after that. Her sister’s estranged husband, William Balfour, was convicted of the killings in 2012 and is serving three life sentences.
Their son, David Daniel Otunga Jr, was born the following August and is 17 now.
Hudson twice said in public that the wedding was arranged, and neither announcement was followed by one. In January 2011 she told NBC’s Dateline she had designed the dress herself, in three pieces, with a coat for her entrance that came off for the walk down the aisle and a different dress again by the time she reached the altar. She had a date, she said, and was keeping it to herself. That September she repeated it to In Touch at a magazine event. “I’ve always had a date,” she said. “Just haven’t told anybody. So it’s set.”
How the engagement ended
They were together for ten years in all, engaged for nine of them. In November 2017 Hudson’s representative confirmed the relationship was over and said she had requested and received a protective order against Otunga, a step taken “solely in the best interest of their son.” Otunga’s attorney said he had never abused or harassed Hudson or their child, and called the allegations false.
Hudson withdrew the order less than two weeks later. A source close to her told People she had done it to take the matter out of court so the two of them could work out what was best for their son. Police in Burr Ridge, Illinois, investigated and closed the case without charges in January 2018. Custody was settled privately in 2019.
Otunga, her former fiancรฉ, put the engagement ring up for auction in 2022, where it sold for $45,000.
Common, and what he has said about marriage
Hudson and Common had known each other for years before they worked together in 2022 on the film Breathe, playing husband and wife. Photographs of them at basketball games and restaurants followed, and neither would confirm anything for more than a year.
She put the question to him herself, on her own show, in January 2024. He laughed, said he was seeing someone, and described her without using her name, mentioning that she was smart, down to earth, talented and an EGOT winner.
He has been more direct since. On the same show in October 2024, he said that if he were ever to marry, it would be to Jennifer Kate Hudson, using her full name.
Hudson gives shorter answers. Asked how the relationship was going at the Daytime Emmys in June 2024, she told People: “Everything is wonderful. That’s all you need to know.” At the 2025 Daytime Emmys, held in October, she told E! News that their shared Chicago background was much of the reason it worked. “We’re just similar souls and spirits,” she said. “He’s such a beautiful person.”
| Relationship | David Otunga | Common |
|---|---|---|
| Years together | 2007 to 2017 | 2022 to present |
| Engaged | Yes, from September 2008 | No |
| Married | No | No |
| Children together | One son, born August 2009 | None |
Where things stand
No engagement has been announced and no wedding has been planned in public. Hudson turned 45 on 12 September, and the fifth season of her talk show began two days later. She and Common have now been together for four years.
