Jordin Sparks and Whitney Houston.Photo: TriStar Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection
Jordin Sparksis remembering her time spent withWhitney Houston.
As theAmerican Idolalum, 32, kicked off her tenure on season 31 ofDancing with the Starson Monday, she took a moment to reflect on getting to know the late superstar vocalist while filming the 2012 film,Sparkle.
“She started playing some amazing music, and somebody did this amazing run,” recalled Sparks. “I was like, ‘Wow, I wish I could do that.’ She looked at me and was like, ‘You can do that. You can do that. Don’t ever tell yourself that you can’t. Don’t let anybody tell you you can’t. Don’t let anybody else tell you you can’t.'”
The Grammy nominee continued, “I’ve carried that with me through a lot of my performances, and she’s really impacted me in that way, to know that you can impact somebody’s life without knowing them for a very long time.”
Brandon Armstrong and Jordin Sparks.Eric McCandless/abc
“I didn’t get to know her for very long, but the time I did spend with her really, really impacted me and I’ve carried it with me since, obviously,” she noted.
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Sparks said Houston was “so supportive” and that “she would be really, really proud” of her former co-star’sDancing with the Starsjourney: “If she was in that audience, she would’ve been standing up and she would’ve been screaming just like all of us.”
Over a decade ago, Sparks made her film debut inSparkleand starred alongside Houston in the 1960s-set film, which followed the story of a girl group comprised of three sisters.
“Part of the fun of making this movie is definitely the costumes and the hairstyles,” Houston told PEOPLE of the film at the time. “The movie is set in 1963, and we had a great wardrobe, hair and makeup person, and I loved wearing the outfits.”
Whitney Houston and Jordin Sparks.TriStar Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection
In the same interview, Sparks said that working with Houston was a “dream come true.”
“I sang her songs into a hairbrush when I was little,” she said. “Now she’s acting as my mom and scolding me. It was a dream come true.”
A biopic about the late singer,I Wanna Dance with Somebody, is set to hit theaters Dec. 21 starringNaomi Ackieas Houston. The actress, 30, recently admitted she was “very” nervous to play the “incredible, multifaceted” singer.
“She’s been elevated in my life for so long that it felt like an impossible thing to achieve at times,” Ackie told PEOPLE. “But so many people told me the same thing: If Iwasn’tscared and nervous, they’d think something was wrong with me… The biggest challenge was letting my fear of the magnitude of this task take a back seat. Nothing good comes from sitting in fear for too long.”
source: people.com
