When Grammy-winning country singer Naomi Judd died last month, her daughter Ashley Judd claimed she had lost her mother to mental illness.
Ashley Judd was more forthright on Thursday, telling a television interview that her mother died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at her Tennessee home, and encouraged those in distress to get treatment.
Naomi Judd's Daughter Tells the Truth About Her Death
Ashley Judd, an actress, said on Good Morning America with Diane Sawyer that she was coming out about her mother's death because her family wanted to share the facts before it went public without our permission.
In the 1980s, Naomi Judd and her other daughter, Wynonna Judd, ruled the country music charts as the Judds, a mother-daughter combination. Naomi Judd, 76, passed away on April 30, just one day before the duet was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Ashley Judd says she was visiting her mother at her house outside of Nashville when she died in an interview on Thursday. Ashley Judd claimed she walked outside to welcome a friend of her mother who had dropped by, and when she returned upstairs to inform her mother that the friend had arrived, she discovered her mother had died, according to the New York Times.
According to Ashley Judd, the family reluctantly revealed the reason for death before it was made public in another way. She also said that she was the one who discovered her mother after the incident, who had been open about her sadness, but her mother couldn't hold on long enough to be acknowledged by her peers.
She went on to say that after her mother's death, she had experienced loss and trauma and that it was vital to differentiate her mother from her mental illness. Naomi Judd, a single mother with two kids, was born in Ashland, a coal-mining town in northern Kentucky, and resided in California before relocating to Nashville in 1979.
Ashley Judd worked as a nurse to support her family while pursuing a singing career with Wynonna. Ashley Judd got their break in 1983 when she was caring for a patient who turned out to be the daughter of an RCA Records executive. A record deal, nine CMA Awards, five Grammy Awards, and 14 No. 1 singles followed, as per CNN.
The Judds Singing Career
Throughout their almost three-decade career, the mother-daughter duo had 14 No. 1 hits. Naomi was afflicted with hepatitis in 1991, and the duet called it quits after getting to the top of country music. Love Can Build a Bridge (1990), Mama He's Crazy (1984), Why Not Me (1984), Turn It Loose (1988), Girls Night Out (1985), Rockin' With the Rhythm of the Rain (1986), and Grandpa (1986) were among the Judds' hits.
They last appeared together on April 11 at the CMT Music Awards, singing 'Love Can Build a Bridge.' A gospel choir performed beside them. Naomi and Wynonna had just announced a farewell tour, their first in almost a decade. The 10-city tour, which was co-produced by Sandbox Live and Live Nation, was set to kick up on September 30 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and end on October 28 at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville.
They rose to prominence after performing on Ralph Emery's morning program in early 1980, when the presenter dubbed them the 'Soap Sisters' since Naomi claimed to have made her soap, Daily Mail reported.
The bulk of gun deaths in the United States has traditionally been suicides. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, guns were used in 53 percent of suicides in 2020. In 2020, more than 24,000 people died from gun-related suicide, and more than 19,350 people perished from gun-related homicide, the greatest figure ever recorded in the United States.
In the interview, Ashley Judd stated that her mother was most alive when she was performing. She urged those in difficulty to seek assistance and listed options such as the national suicide hotline and the National Alliance for Mental Illness, which also offers a hotline.
