//Mixed Bits: Jennifer Hudson Gets Engaged; Swizz Beats Speaks Out On Alicia Keys; Rihanna Gets Candid About Teen Years//

Jennifer Hudson is having a great September. Her new album will be released at the end of the month, she just revealed her new single and it’s getting rave reviews, and now she’s engaged. The Oscar winner will marry her boyfriend of less than a year, David Otunga, better known as Punk from VH-1’s I Love New York 2.

David popped the question at the singer’s birthday party on Friday night. A rep confirmed the engagement to People.com saying, “I can confirm that Jennifer got engaged to her boyfriend David on Friday night in L.A.”

Both are natives of Chicago.

*In my best Flavor Flav voice* Woooooooow! How late am I!? I had no idea these two were even dating. If you don’t remember who David is, he was one of three guys left to battle for Tiffany Pollard aka New York’s heart (though, I have no idea why anyone would want to do that) in season two of the show. He eventually lost to “Tailor Made.” I’m sure he doesn’t feel bad…

Check out his myspace for more: http://www.myspace.com/davidotunga

Congrats to Jennifer…

Alicia Keys is a lot of things: incredibly talented, gorgeous, the freakin’ queen of R&B. But one thing she is not is a homewrecker.

For months shady gossip blogs have been trying their best to tarnish the 11-time Grammy award winner’s reputation with rumors that she was responsible for breaking up the marriage between superproducer Swizz Beatz and his wife, singer Mashonda.

Despite trying to clear the air months ago, the rumors continued but Beatz is fed up and decided to release yet another statement to Us Weekly about the situation:

“I can no longer ignore the harmful rumors, that my friend Alicia Keys is in any way linked to my marital circumstances or to the decision that [my wife] Mashonda and I have made to separate,” Beatz tells Us.

“I am disappointed that some have chosen to try and tarnish Alicia’s reputation by irresponsibly implicating her in a situation that she has absolutely nothing to do with,” Beatz, a father of two, says.

“This experience has been one of the most difficult times in my life, and as was stated when we announced our separation several months ago, I ask that you continue to respect my privacy in dealing with this personal matter,” Beatz tells Us.

Beatz last worked with Alicia on her album As I Am on a bonus song called “Waiting For Your Love.”

Rihanna’s third album is called Good Girl Gone Bad but could it be that Rih was actually a bad girl all along? Eh, not quite. But the glamazon is revealing a bit more about her childhood having to grow up a little faster because of her father’s battle with drugs and alcohol.

In an interview with the UK’s Daily Mail, she got candid about her childhood:

I was raised to be a child and know my place, but also to think like a woman. My father’s life was fairly chaotic and, partly because of his drug problems, there was never much money. My mum worked as an accountant and a lot of the time I was left in charge of my younger brothers. It didn’t feel like a burden. It was just reality.

‘When I was 13 I joined the cadets, and we’d regularly go off on these weekend expeditions. There was a lot of discipline involved with that. Our uniforms had to be spick and span, our boots had to shine like diamonds and we’d often need to cook for the entire camp.

‘Also, we learned to shoot pistols, which was the best part of it. I was a good shot, although I couldn’t kill a fly from a hundred paces.’

Rihanna showed discipline even as she got older and fell into the Barbados party scene at 14-years-old:

‘I’d go out and get drunk, but that’s what teenage girls do in Barbados,’ she says.

‘The country’s pretty laid-back about the legal age for drinking. But I never went too over the top.

‘I wasn’t exactly in Amy Winehouse mode. I’d seen what alcohol and drugs had done to my dad and I wasn’t going to follow in his footsteps. I knew my limits when I was a kid and I still do.

Read the full interview here and check out two more fierce photos below:

 

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