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Watch Andra Day channel Billie Holiday to sing 'Mary Had a Little Lamb'

By Megan Armstrong | Last updated 4/16/21

Andra Day has won one Golden Globe and is nominated at the upcoming April 25 Oscars for her titular role in The United States vs. Billie Holiday, and while the Lee Daniels-directed film focuses on the FBI's efforts to silence Holiday from singing "Strange Fruit," Day channeled the late jazz icon to sing something else on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

Tiffany Haddish, sitting in for DeGeneres as host, duetted with Day singing "Mary Had a Little Lamb" in Holiday's delivery (7:30-mark):

Earlier in the segment, Day explained Holiday's crucial role in the civil rights movement and why this film is so important:

"It was a story we were never supposed to know. It was a story of the U.S. government, with their entire force, going after her for singing a song called 'Strange Fruit,' which was a song about lynching and racial terror in America. They were relentless and vicious, to the point where she would sing the song at club, and they would be chasing her and shooting into her car afterward with the intent to kill her. And so, it really highlights the fact that this woman, to her own detriment, continued to sing this song ... and that she was really fighting for racial equality. ... She is truly the great godmother of the civil rights movement as we know it today."

The 36-year-old also touched on how she embodied Holiday, who passed in 1959 at 44 years old: "It was definitely an all-over transformation. It's so funny because people—I don't smoke, I don't drink, and I happen to be abstinent so I don't engage in that way as well. I don't cuss either. ... So it was a very different mentality to be in. I did start smoking cigarettes for the role."

The United States vs. Billie Holiday released Feb. 26 to Hulu, where it is still available for streaming.