American Idle

In light of the tragedy surrounding the family of Jennifer Hudson, the family has decided it will hold a public service Sunday in Chicago. Earlier in the week it wasn’t certain if the Hudson family would go through with a public service.

The service will honor the lives of Hudson’s mother, brother and 7-year-old nephew. They were all killed last weekend. It’s hard to believe it’s already been a week since the murders.

Lots of speculation surrounding the murders have surfaced in the past several days and Jennifer Hudson is still sequestered in the Chicago hotel, where she has stayed, under surveillance via her bodyguards and security team, since the murders occurred.

The one interesting piece of news (although not too surprising) is that Hudson and her sister Julia have chosen not to attend the public service.

The service will be held 7 p.m. Sunday evening at the Pleasant Gift Missionary Baptist Church, 4526 South Greenwood in Chicago.

Please share your stories with us if you plan to go. And all the best to Hudson’s family as they continue to go through this difficult time.

Apparently the toll of three deaths in her family at one time may be too much for Jennifer Hudson, who has now reportedly gone into seclusion at a Chicago hotel and won’t come out of her suite, unless it’s to identify bodies, which she has had to do on two separate occasions.

How horrible. First things first. Some people have some nerve to say she’s in hiding. What would you do if you were in Hudson’s situation…throw a party and celebrate? Come on!

Of course she’d be in mourning; they haven’t even had the funeral services yet and the investigation into the murders is still ongoing. The only good news out of this tragedy (if you can call it that) is that they’ve located the bodies, so the family can mourn.

The other Jennifer Hudson news is that Chicago police have reportedly found a gun near the white SUV inside where they found little 7-year-old Julian King’s body. No telling yet if the gun belonged to suspect William Balfour, although I’ll go out on a limb (no pun intended) and say it likely did.

Even so, the police aren’t saying anything. And, if you happened to hear less than 10 seconds of Balfour’s mother ranting on Nancy Grace earlier this week, you know there are some people in the world (me not included) who think Balfour is innocent.

Yeah, it’s no coincidence that Balfour was having domestic disputes with members of Hudson’s family leading up to the grisly weekend and that Balfour was reportedly behind on car payments for a vehicle in Julia Hudson’s name. No, that wouldn’t have anything to do with anything, right? Of course I’m being sarcastic.

But what do you think of the latest developments?

Remember Josiah Leming? The kid with the ebullient personality who lived out of his car during the American Idol 7 auditions? For some odd reason the kid got booted before the Top 50, but he stormed back with a vengeance and didn’t let the Hollywood bigwigs get in his way of becoming famous.

All he did (in order) was stay in Hollywood, hit the talk-show circuit, become more famous than most of the Idols chosen for the Top 24 in season 7 (honestly, do you remember what some of them did?) AND put out his own album.

And he did this (drum roll please) before most of the season 7 finalists! Now some are saying this album is all over the place and I don’t agree. What I will say is that the album has a lot of variety, which is a hell of a lot different from some overproduced, hype-ridden (yeah, Kristy Lee Cook, we’re talkin’ about your album) piece of crap.

Josiah has basically catapulted himself into the same breath as Sanjaya, except Leming actually put out an album. Sanjaya, last I checked, is still doing those insurance commercials.

So go check out Josiah Leming‘s new EP, “Angels Undercover” by going to my “other American Idol” Web site and clicking on American Idle Store in the upper left corner of the page. You’ll be glad you did!

Ah, the plot thickens as details emerge from the triple homicide and slayings of three of Jennifer Hudson’s family members.

Apparently there were some potential motives to the killings, although police have yet to name anyone directly involved with the murders of Jason Hudson, Jennifer’s brother, her mother Darnell Donerson and her nephew Julian King.

However, some interesting news has surfaced in regard to William Balfour, a convicted felon and a suspect in the killings. First, Julia Hudson, Julian’s mother and Jennifer‘s sister, had become agitated at Balfour for not making payments on a car that was registered in her name. Julia had recently found out that her paycheck had been garnished because Balfour had reportedly stopped making payments on the car in question.

Also, there are some reports that Balfour was angry at Julia for having a boyfriend although those rumors have not been confirmed. Never mind the fact that Balfour has reportedly had several girlfriends; that’s not the point, apparently. What is the point is three people from Jennifer Hudson’s immediate family are no longer with her and that these senseless killings are diverting attention away from the real problem, and that’s the dissolution of marriages in this country.

It’s all too easy, it seems, for couples to just walk away and try to find that the grass is greener on the other side, when in all actuality it leads to a vast wasteland filled with weeds and dirt.

If this is true, what a tragic ending to an already terrible weekend for Jennifer Hudson.

The body of 7-year-old Julian King, Jennifer Hudson’s nephew, was reportedly found dead in a parked white SUV on the west side of Chicago this morning. An Amber Alert has been out for King since his disappearance on Friday.

The white SUV is reportedly the same white SUV belonging to the slain Jason Hudson that went missing at the time of Friday’s murders. Also found dead Friday at the time of Jason’s murder was Hudson’s mother, Darnell Donerson.

William Balfour, the estranged husband, King’s father and a convicted felon, was brought in for questioning shortly after the time of the murders. He has now been transferred to a state correctional facility for reportedly violating his parole.

However, Balfour has not been charged with any crime. The investigation into the two murders — and now possibly three with the alleged discovery of King’s body — is ongoing. More to come.

UPDATE 2:40 PM MST: Police did confirm that the body found in the white SUV was that of 7-year-old Julian King. I’m speechless.

Wow, what a horrible weekend for Jennifer Hudson, who should be enjoying her new film, “The Secret Life Of Bees,” as well as a recent engagement to “Punk” from the VH1 reality series “I Love New York.”

Instead, her time has been spent identifying bodies of her loved ones and issuing a plea on her MySpace page to please return her 7-year-old nephew, Julian King, who has now been declared missing. An Amber Alert has been issued for his safe return. At this point in time there have been no clues as to his return.

And this brings something to mind: While my job is to bring you the unvarnished news and report what the other news agencies will not and cannot, there really is nothing funny about the terrible tragedies that have occurred this weekend on the south side of Chicago.

Police have taken into custody one William Balfour, 27, of Chicago, the estranged husband of Julia Hudson, Jennifer’s sister and little Julian’s mother. He has only been listed in reports as a suspect, however, and has not been charged with any crime.

Here is the public plea Hudson posted on her MySpace. Julian King’s picture is above.

Thank You All

Thank you all for your prayers and your calls. Please keep praying for our family and that we get Julian King back home safely. If anyone has any information about his whereabouts please contact the authorities immediately. Here is a picture of Julian and what he was last seen wearing. Once again thank you all for being there for us through this tough time.Sincerely,
The Hudson Family

We will post updates as soon as we get them. Our hearts and prayers go out to the Hudson family at this time.

Remember Kristy Lee Cook? She with the story about selling her horse? She has some history, you know. She was probably the only girl to have sung one song (“Amazing Grace” for those of you counting at home) to get her through the early and Hollywood rounds last season.

Seriously, people, you can go back and look at the tapes, but she sang ONE song TO get to the final 50 last season. That’s talent! (Or luck. Or television.)

Now Kristy Lee is preparing for her show on the Grand Ole Opry this Saturday. To warm up (or just to get some needed publicity; more on that in a minute) she will sing the National Anthem Saturday morning at the Vanderbilt football game. Vandy is experiencing some unprecedented success in college football this year, so maybe singing at the Vandy game will rub off on Kristy Lee.

As for her debut album, Why Wait, it isn’t exactly tearing up the charts (it has only sold about 19,000 copies at press time).

However, her feature single off the album, entitled “15 Minutes Of Shame” is doing okay on the Billboard Country Charts, topping out at No. 32 at the moment.

Apparently Simon Cowell is on somebody else’s shit, um, hit list. His other “talent” show in Europe, The X-Factor, is taking some flak (that’s a nice way to say crap) from some Islamic fundamentalist extremists, and they don’t even sing or dance badly. Well, not that we know of, anyway.

What is their problem? Well, apparently, they, like others, don’t take too kindly to Simon Cowell or people who have appeared on the show. But what really got their goat is that the finalists from Cowell’s “other” European show had the audacity to do a single for charity, which apparently benefited the British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So that put the Islamists in an uproar, and the next thing you know, they’re denouncing democracy (nothing new), Simon Cowell for being a jerk (again this is not old news if you’re a bad singer who was ostracized by Cowell at any Idol audition since its inception) and they’re calling for Cowell’s head, literally.

The preacher in question and talking head, one Omar Bakri Muhammad from Lebanon, basically announced it at a recent event. This prompted Cowell’s cronies to freak out and call on Scotland Yard (not making this up) and so they beefed up security for the October 25 finale.

Because God knows, we wouldn’t want anything to happen to our precious Simon, right? Especially since American Idol 8 is coming up this spring.

On an interview from his Hollywood Hills home for The Morning Show in Australia (which, by the way, is his real home if you didn’t know), Michael Johns told his compatriots that his independently produced album will be finished, studio-wise, sometime in November or December. That’s narrowing it down, huh, mate?

His first single is due to come out sometime in January or February (as you can see, the dates for release are still somewhat tentative, which makes me wonder if it will actually be ready in January or February). Anyway, this is the “date” when the album is scheduled to arrive. Keep your fingers crossed.

So from the looks of things, those target dates may just be pipe dreams. Let’s hope Johns is right; this is one of the most anticipated albums from any of the Idols of season 7 and is certainly one I’ll be picking up once it hits stores or iTunes.

Fresh off his victory of sorts in which he came out of the closet (read: announced something the world already knew, and that was he’s gay) AND had a baby boy via the artificial insemination route, Clay Aiken did something he’s been known to do on occasion, and that’s sing.

He did so this weekend at a fundraiser benefiting children with disabilities in his hometown of Raleigh, North Carolina. The event was fronted by his foundation, the Bubel-Aiken Foundation.

There were other things going on at this event other than Clay Aiken singing his pretty little lungs out for a good cause. They had a silent auction and the bidders had an opportunity to own clothing worn by Aiken.

What kind of clothing that is would definitely be a point of contention. For example, I’m not quite sure I would want to wear any underwear or pants that Aiken had been wearing.

Anyway, above you can watch the clip of Aiken’s performance. I personally prefer Richard Marx’s version, but I’m just a man on an island of 40-year-olds who would do just about anything to get this guy’s clothes.