*Oprah Winfrey and the cast of “The Color Purple” reboot surprised Fantasia for her 39th birthday at Essence Fest 2023.
“The American Idol winner” was promoting the movie musical when Oprah and fellow castmates Danielle Brooks and Taraji P. Henson presented Fanny with a cake as the crew gathered around to sing Stevie Wonder’s version of “Happy Birthday.”
“It’s your birthday! It’s your birthday!” Brooks exclaimed, Vibe reports.
“We love you so much. Our Celie, y’all!” Henson declared.
Oprah captioned the video, “@tasiasword, our Celie in the new @thecolorpurple, turned 39 today—so we had to celebrate it while part of the Purple family is at @essencefest.”
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We reported earlier that the project’s executive producers include Oprah, Steven Spielberg, and Quincy Jones. Directed by Blitz Bazawule, the upcoming movie musical follows the classic 1985 film adaptation from Spielberg and centers on Celie, a Black Southern woman who struggles to find her identity amid decades of abuse. Whoopi Goldberg played Celie in Spielberg’s film.
Spielberg’s film was a box office success, grossing $142 million against a budget of $15 million.
The cast includes Taraji P. Henson as Shug Avery, Danielle Brooks as Sofia, Corey Hawkins as Harpo, singer H.E.R. as Squeak (originally played by Rae Dawn Chong in Spielberg’s film), Ciara will play Nettie, the younger sister of Celie, who will be portrayed by Fantasia, Entertainment Weekly reports. Grammy-winner Jon Batiste, per Deadline, “will make his big-screen acting debut as Grady, a debonair, sweet-talking piano man who is the epitome of charm and eloquence and husband of Shug Avery. Bennet Guillory played the role in the 1985 feature,” the outlet writes.
The highly-anticipated musical also stars Halle Bailey and Colman Domingo. As reported by Variety, the forthcoming Warner Bros. movie musical is an adaptation of the Tony-winning Broadway musical by Marsha Norman, Brenda Lee, Allee Willis and Stephen Bray, which was based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Alice Walker.
“The Color Purple” makes its theatrical debut on Christmas.
READ MORE: Trailer for ‘The Color Purple’ Got the Internet Hyped
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