Jennifer Hudson and Jenifer Lewis Team Up for a ‘Dreamgirls’ Duet on The Jennifer Hudson Show

Jennifer Hudson and Jenifer Lewis brought Effie White face to face on The Jennifer Hudson Show, singing a Dreamgirls duet in a preview clip released ahead of Lewis’ guest appearance on the Tuesday, May 12 episode.

Both women have played the role. Hudson won an Oscar for portraying Effie White in the 2006 film adaptation. Lewis, meanwhile, told Hudson she had stepped into the part after graduating from college and moving to New York, when she replaced Tony Award winner Jennifer Holliday in the workshop production before the show went to Broadway.

“I’m telling y’all right now, I could sing my ‘a’ off back then,” Lewis says in the clip. “But nobody could sing like Jennifer Holliday. Of course, she took it to Broadway.”

She then adds, “It was Jenifer Lewis that developed the role of Effie. Jennifer Holliday took it Broadway. And Jennifer Hudson did the movie. That’s a lot of ‘Jennifer’ going on.”

Hudson, who had previously sung with Lewis on the show, gets the cue for their next song from Lewis herself. The selection is “I Am Changing.”

“I want y’all to know, and this is true, I haven’t sung this song since I was 19 years old,” Lewis says as the opening notes begin. The two singers trade lines, then stand and hold onto each other as the song builds to its finish. They end in a hug, with repeated “I love you”s.

“I got to sing with Jenifer Lewis, yo!” Hudson says after the performance. “I’m living a dream right now.”

Jennifer Hudson and Jenifer Lewis on “The Jennifer Hudson Show,” Episode 4126 Season 4
Chris Haston/WBTV