- published: 25 Mar 2016
- views: 2680
Not to be confused with pornographic actress Sunny Lane.
Sunny Leone (born May 13, 1981) is an Indo-Canadian pornographic actress, actress, businesswoman and model of dual Canadian/American nationality. She was named Penthouse Pet of the Year in 2003 and was a contract star for Vivid Entertainment. Named by Maxim as one of the 12 top porn stars in 2010, she has also played roles in independent mainstream films and television shows.
Leone was born in Sarnia, Ontario to Sikh Punjabi parents from India. Her father was born in Tibet and raised in Delhi, while her mother (who died in 2008) was from a small town named Nahan in Sirmaur, Himachal Pradesh. As a young girl, she was very athletic and played street hockey with the boys, enjoyed ice skating on a nearby frozen lake and drinking hot chocolate in front of a fire after playing in the snow all day.
Though she was raised as a Sikh, her parents enrolled her in a Catholic school, as it was felt to be unsafe for her to go to public school. There she had her first kiss at 11, lost her virginity to a basketball player at another school at 16, and discovered that she was bisexual at 18. When she was 13, her family moved to Fort Gratiot, Michigan, then to Lake Forest, California a year later, fulfilling her grandparents' dream that the family be together in one place. She graduated from high school in 1999 and enrolled in college.
Jennifer Kate Hudson (born September 12, 1981) is an American recording artist, actress and spokesperson. She came to prominence in 2004 as one of the finalists on the third season of American Idol, coming in seventh place. She made her film debut in the 2006 film Dreamgirls, which won her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA Award, an NAACP Image Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
She won a Grammy Award for her eponymous debut album, Jennifer Hudson, which was released in 2008 on Arista Records and was certified gold by the RIAA for selling over 800,000 copies in the US; sales exceeded 1 million copies worldwide. Additionally, it spawned the hit single Spotlight. Her second album, I Remember Me, was released in March 2011, and reached number two on the Billboard 200, selling 165,000 copies in its first week of release. The album was certified gold by the RIAA, for shipping over 500,000 copies in the US.
In late 2008, after Hudson's mother, brother and nephew were killed in a shooting, Hudson stepped out of the limelight for three months. Hudson resumed her public appearances in 2009, and has since performed at the Super Bowl XLIII, the Grammy Awards, American Idol, and The Oprah Winfrey Show. Hudson has been described as a friend of President Barack Obama, who invited her to appear with him at a fundraiser in Beverly Hills in May 2009. She also performed at the White House at the "Celebration of Music from the Civil Rights Movement" event. Her vocal range is mezzo-soprano. Hudson has sold 1,280,000 albums and 2,237,000 tracks in the United States as of February 2012.