See ‘Dreamgirls’ Icon Jennifer Holliday Perform on ‘Beyond the Gates’ (VIDEO)

Grammy and Tony Award-winning artist Jennifer Holliday will make a special musical appearance on Beyond the Gates on Friday, April 3.

Holliday will play herself on the soap, as part of its Easter celebration. In the storyline, Vernon Dupree (Clifton Davis) reaches out to Holliday, a longtime friend of his wife, singing star Anita Dupree (Tamara Tunie), and invites her to visit Fairmont Crest. Vernon hopes seeing Jennifer will lift Anita’s spirits as she copes with the effects of her breast cancer treatment.

When Vernon asks her to come, Holliday — with a nod to her memorable turn as Effie Melody White singing “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” in Dreamgirls — responds, “I am telling you, I’m coming!”

During the Easter brunch, Holliday will deliver a moving tribute to Anita, a founding member of the musical group, The Articulettes, before performing an original song, “The Greatest Gift of All,” composed by the Beyond the Gates music team: Kurt Farquhar, Marvin “Chanz” Parkman, and Ashley Neumeister.

In TV Insider’s exclusive 2026 preview for BTG, the show’s creator, Michele Val Jean, hinted that they had big plans for the Easter episode, teasing, “We’ve had musical guests before, like Kenny Lattimore and Keke Wyatt, and we’re going to have another musical guest. I’m not at liberty to say who, but it’s big. And I love that we have music in the show, because music is my first love. and I’m excited about this, this Easter show.”

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Anita’s cancer storyline began in late December 2025 and will continue to be a central focus. “We’re going to see recovery,” Val Jean said in her preview. “We’re going to see what happens and what you have to go through, and we’re going to go through all the stuff. It’s going to be hard. There’s pain involved, but it’s going to be a true representation of what a cancer survivor goes through to get to be a survivor.”

Tunie, who has eschewed glam to portray the physical toll of treatment, says, “I couldn’t imagine not doing the journey. The team is taking it so seriously, and they put in so much work and so much research to really make it as authentic as possible. I sit in the makeup chair, and Stevie Martin, who does my makeup, says, “OK, what does it look like today? It’s gotta be different from yesterday, and it will be different from tomorrow.’ The storytelling that the hair is doing and going to do through this journey is incredible. I was like, ‘OK, if we’re going to do that, we have to go all the way.’”

Check out the above exclusive clip from Holliday’s appearance in the Friday, April 3 episode.

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