… I have to say yes. And I have to get up. And I have to make the best of that day.”
On Being Too Big For TV
“I had just been dropped by Geffen Records, and didn’t know what I was going to do with my career. And I just kept gaining more and more weight. I had ballooned up to 345 pounds. It was the age of videos, you know, we had just started. So they said, ‘Well, Jennifer, you can sing but you’re unattractive. So if we make a video of you, we’d have to stretch you, or put you in a shadow box and put people around you.’ And that was the ’80s, so dance music was coming up, and all of this kind of stuff. So they were like, ‘You know we can’t make videos with you. So you got a great voice, but no use for you.’ So they kicked me to the curb. So I said [losing weight] would help. Probably I could have a boyfriend if I lost weight. I could have a relationship. It would just be all right. So they said, ‘Well, there’s this new surgery. It has not been approved yet.’ And that was the gastric bypass. I was one of the first to have that. So I did that. I lost weight really quickly. Lost all the weight, found out I still had the same issues! Still had the same problems! Two hundred pounds smaller, same issues, OK? Baggage still there! Back to counseling!”
Here’s her famous vocals:
And the counselling did help, along with prayers and her faith. Currently, Jennifer Holliday gives concerts throughout the world and performs with many symphonies across the country. She has performed at the White House on numerous occasions for Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. Bush, and Bill Clinton. She dreams of one day returning to the Broadway stage in another big musical and hopes to continue to grow and develop herself as a singer and actress. Holliday has broadened her talents to the worlds of television and film. She guest starred numerous times on the hit Fox TV show Ally McBeal, as well as appeared on Ellen, Hang Time, and Touched by an Angel.
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Jennifer Holliday: “It’s As If My Whole Life Started Over” was originally published on blackdoctor.org
