[2] Her mother, Alice Tan Ridley, is an American R&B and gospel singer who appeared on the fifth season of America's Got Talent, on June 15, 2010.

Her next film, Yelling to the Sky, was a Sundance Lab project directed by Victoria Mahoney and starring Zoë Kravitz, in which she played Latonya Williams, a bully.

episode "Stanny Tendergrass" early in 2013, and starred in the music video for "Don't Stop (Color on the Walls)" by the indie pop band Foster the People.

[10] She returned to the series for its fourth season, American Horror Story: Freak Show as a secretarial school student, Regina Ross.

[11] From 2015, she stars in Lee Daniels' Fox musical series Empire as Becky Williams alongside Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson.

[15] On January 6, 2016, Sidibe appeared in the penultimate episode of American Horror Story: Hotel, reprising her Coven role as Queenie, marking her third season in the series.

In March 2017, Sidibe revealed that she had been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and underwent laparoscopic bariatric surgery in an effort to manage her weight.