Andra Day wore Valentino Summer 2021 while promoting the film “The United States vs. Billie Holiday”
During an appearance on “Good Morning America” on Thursday, the Grammy-nominated singer and actress, 36, spoke about the significance of playing the iconic jazz musician in “The United States Vs. Billie Holiday” and her lifelong admiration of Holiday.
Day admitted that she took inspiration from the iconic singer when crafting part of her stage name earlier in her career.
“I love the relationship between Billie Holiday and Lester Young, and he gave her the name ‘Lady Day’ and she gave him the name ‘The President’ — and then he gave her mother the name of ‘The Duchess,'” Day explained. “Billie always called themselves the royal family, so I loved ‘Lady Day.’ I just loved how that sounded … It was just very classy, very regal — so it’s where the Day came from.”
She said that she has been a fan of Holiday for most of her life — since she was around 11 or 12 years old — so she knew “quite a bit” about the legendary artist before taking on the role .
“I did know about the government going after her for singing ‘Strange Fruit’ and for integrating audiences and I was aware that she really was sort of the early godmother of the civil rights movement,” she said. “The degree to which they went after her, I think, was alarming for me.”
“It made my love for her even deeper because they were very broad shoulders she was carrying the entire movement on,” Day added.
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