Jennifer Hudson to Headline New Concert Series on Carnival Cruise Lines

Jennifer Hudson is going back to her roots of crooning on a cruise ship, only this time she’ll be headlining a new concert series, "Carnival Live," that Carnival Cruise Lines will be putting on, the Associated Press reports.

The singer is intending to go "full circle" with this new venture. "I used to work on a cruise ship, a long time ago," said Hudson before performing at a Carnival news conference in midtown New York City, the AP reports. "That's what I did before I did American Idol."

She is expected to perform June 18 on Carnival Ecstasy and June 19 on Carnival Breeze while both ships are in Cozumel, Mexico.

Other performers slated to appear in the series include Chicago, Daughtry, Jewel, Lady Antebellum, LeAnn Rimes, Martina McBride and Trace Adkins. There are 49 shows confirmed so far for the year, with eight ships participating.

As the AP notes, the cruise line has been fighting to rebuild its brand after three ships broke down last year, leaving passengers stranded at sea. The images of these failures, along with trip cancellations, dealt the line a serious hand of bad press from which it is still trying to recover.

Read more at the Associated Press.