The day before being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, Naomi Judd, 75, committed suicide using a gun.
Her daughter Ashley told Diane Sawyer in an interview aired on “Good Morning America” her mother’s April 30 death was from suicide.
She explained her mother had long suffered from mental illness, which she said could take control of a person and produce feelings of worthlessness.
“My mother knew she was seen and she was heard in her anguish,” Ashley Judd said. “Our mother couldn’t hang on until she was inducted into the Hall of Fame by her peers. That is the level of catastrophe that was going on inside her.”
“The regard in which they held her couldn’t penetrate into her heart,” she added, “her brain hurt.”
Her half sister, Wynonna Judd, who — with her mother, Naomi — comprised the country music duo The Judds, appeared emotional onstage the next day as the group was inducted into the Hall of Fame.
“I didn’t prepare anything tonight because I knew mom would probably talk the most,” Wynonna said. “I’m gonna make this fast, because my heart’s broken, and I feel so blessed. It’s a very strange dynamic, to be this broken and this blessed.”
“Though my heart’s broken, I will continue to sing, because that’s what we do.”
Ashley Judd informed Sawyer the family sort of “deputized” her to speak about the death of Naomi Judd. “Because we didn’t want it to be part of the gossip economy, I will share with you that she used a weapon,” the distraught daughter declared. “Mother used a firearm.”
She added that her mother’s final day was a “mixed day” because she was at her house visiting the day of her death. Ashley said she always visited her mother and stepfather when she was home in Tennessee.
“So, I was at the house visiting, as I am every day,” she said. “Mom said to me, ‘Will you stay with me?’ and I said, ‘Of course I will.'”
Sawyer said Ashley went outside to bring in a comforting friend of Naomi’s who had arrived at the house.
“I went upstairs to let her know the friend was there and I discovered her,” Ashley said.
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