Tony Awards: Jennifer Hudson earns EGOT status after award win for A Strange Loop

Jennifer Hudson has achieved EGOT status after winning a Tony award for A Strange Loop on Sunday (12 June).

EGOT is an acronym for the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Awards. It is the designation given to people who have won all four of those awards.

Hudson is the second black woman in history to ever receive this status. The first was Whoopi Goldberg.

The 40-year-old actor served as a producer for A Strange Loop, which won best musical at the 75th annual ceremony held in New York.

Only 16 people have attained EGOT status in the past. The list includes celebrities such as Andrew Lloyd Webber, Rita Moreno, John Legend, and Goldberg.

The first part of Hudson’s collection came with her Oscar win in the category of Best Supporting Actress for her performance in 2006’s Dreamgirls.

Then in 2017, the actor won two performance Grammys for Best Musical Theater Album for 2017’s The Color Purple and another for best R&B album for her self-titled album in 2009.

She also won a Daytime Emmy for executive producing the VR-animated film Baba Yaga in 2021.

Hudson is one of many producers behind A Strange Loop, a meta-musical written by Michael R Jackson. The play centres on a Black, queer man named Usher who is writing his first musical and must grapple with the many voices in his head that often stand in his way.

RuPaul Charles, Marc Platt, Megan Ellison, Don Cheadle, Frank Marshall, Alan Cumming, Ilana Glazer, Mindy Kaling, and Billy Porter also served as producers.