It was her fiancé, David Otunga, who inadvertently kept Hudson out of Chicago – all because he implored her to visit him in Florida where he was working with the World Wrestling Entertainment franchise.

“That’s one of the things that saved my life, because I could have been home with my mom then,” Hudson says in an interview in the December/January issue of Ebony. “[Otunga] wanted me to come out to Florida with him instead of going to Chicago.”

Hudson continued, “I flew out to see him; that’s why I’m still here. I’ve never said that before, and I can’t believe I just said that now. But I didn’t know. He was just like, ‘I’m going to this wrestling thing, and it’s in Tampa. I’m going out there now, so you can come out there and see me versus going home.’ “

Otunga is a Harvard-trained attorney and professional wrestler, and the father of Hudson’s 2-year-old son, David Jr.