Ashley Judd said she and her family are in the difficult place of sharing about how their matriarch and country music legend, Naomi Judd, died.
“Because we don’t want it to be part of the gossip economy, I will share with you that she used a weapon,” Ashley Judd told Good Morning America’s Diane Sawyer during an interview at her home in Tennessee. “Mother used a firearm.”
“That’s the piece of information that we are very uncomfortable sharing. But understand that we’re in a position that, you know, if we don’t say it, someone else is going to,” she said.
Judd died at the age of 76 on April 30, just one day before she and her daughter Wynonna were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Ashley Judd told Sawyer that she discovered her mother.
“I have both grief and trauma from discovering her,” she said, adding that the rest of the details surrounding Naomi Judd’s death will remain private.
‘MY HEART’S BROKEN’: WYNONNA JUDD AT COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAME INDUCTION
Ashley Judd read a letter that she said Wynonna Judd sent her.
“I need to take some time to process, and I need this time to myself. I’m not ready yet to speak publicly about what happened,” the letter read. “I just can’t believe she’s gone.”
Ashley Judd stressed how important it was “to make the distinction between the loved one and the disease” of depression, adding how sad she was that her mother “couldn’t hang on” to be recognized by her peers the next day.
“That is the level of catastrophe of what was going on inside of her,” Judd said. “Because the barrier between the regard in which they held her couldn’t penetrate into her heart and the lie the disease told her was so convincing.”
She thanked everyone for their kind words and support in the wake of their grief.
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A memorial honoring Naomi Judd’s life will be televised by CMT Sunday at 6 p.m. EST.
