Jennifer Hudson and Rita Ora Set for Guest Roles on Fox's EMPIRE

E! NEWS writes that singing powerhouses Jennifer Hudson and Rita Ora are headed to FOX's new series EMPIRE in guest starring roles.

No word yet on who they will be playing, although the likelihood of the ladies appearing as themselves is pretty high. Iggy Azalea was also allegedly offered a role but had to decline due to scheduling conflicts.

Hudson, a Grammy winner for her self-titled debut album, made her big screen debut in the film version of Dreamgirls, for which she won the 2006 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, a Golden Globe, a BAFTA, an NAACP Image Award, and a SAG Award. Among her other big screen credits are Sex and the City, The Secret Life of Bees and Winnie Mandela. Her second album, I Remember Me, was released in 2011. Hudson will be making her Broadway debut in The Color Purple this fall.

Ora's self-titled debut studio album hit No. 1 in the UK, and she went on to become a coach on the fourth series of THE VOICE UK. Before that, she appeared on TV in 90210, THE X FACTOR and The Brief, as well as the movies Spivs and Fast & Furious 6. She will soon be see on the big screen in Fifty Shades of Grey and Southpaw.

About EMPIRE:

From Academy Award nominee Lee Daniels ("Lee Daniels' The Butler," "Precious") and Emmy Award winner Danny Strong ("Lee Daniels' The Butler," "Game Change"), comes EMPIRE, a sexy and powerful new drama about the head of a music EMPIRE whose three sons and ex-wife all battle for his throne.

Lucious Lyon (Academy Award nominee Terrence Howard, "Crash," "Hustle & Flow") is the king of hip-hop. An immensely talented artist, the CEO of EMPIRE Entertainment and a former street thug, his reign has been unchallenged for years. But all that changes, when he learns he has a disease that is going to render him crippled and incapacitated in a matter of three years. The clock is ticking, and he must groom one of his three sons to take over his crowning achievement, without destroying his already fractured family.

Lucious' favorite is his youngest son, Hakeem (newcomer Bryshere Gray), a gifted musician and a spoiled playboy who values fame over hard work. The middle son, Jamal (Jussie Smollett, "North," "The Mighty Ducks"), is a sensitive soul and a musical prodigy who, unlike Hakeem, shies away from the spotlight. Jamal also happens to be gay, which infuriates and embarrasses his father. Andre (Trai Byers, "90210"), the eldest son, is CFO of EMPIRE Entertainment. Wharton-educated with a brilliant business mind, Andre lacks the charisma that Lucious believes is crucial to running the company. But in his quest for power, Andre is assisted by his manipulative and like-minded wife, Rhonda (Kaitlin Doubleday, "Hung," "Catch Me If You Can").

As Lucious prompts his sons to vie for the empire, his plans are thrown into chaos when his ex-wife, Cookie (Academy Award and Emmy Award nominee Taraji P. Henson, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "Person of Interest"), mysteriously emerges seven years early from prison, where she's been for almost two decades. Brash and fearless, she sees herself as the sacrificial lamb who built an EMPIRE with Lucious and then took THE FALL for running the drugs that financed Lucious' early career.

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