Naomi, Wynonna, and Ashley Judd have been a famous American entertainment family for
decades. But, the Judds have a truly complicated relationship. Here's a wide-ranging round-up
of their troubles, family dramas, and personal tragedies.
Ashley Judd opened the doors to a painful and disturbing past in her 2011 memoir All
That is Bitter & Sweet, in which she recounts numerous incidents of abuse she endured.
According to excerpts of the book published by Today, Judd alleges that she was "abused
by a family member" as a child. She was also the victim of assault after being taken advantage
of when she was pursuing a modeling career in Japan at just 15 years old.
Another assault followed that experience, when, quote, "an adult male model who lived
above her" tried to force himself on her until she could convince him to stop.
Judd also alleged that her mother and step-father, Larry Strickland, engaged in shocking and
inappropriate behavior in front of her and her sister when they were growing up. Ashley
wrote,
"I now know know this situation is called covert sexual abuse."
This all led Judd to contemplate ending her own life as a teenager. In the time since
Ashley's damning revelations, both her mother Naomi and sister Wynonna have confessed to
being abused by men in their lives as well.
"It's putting the shame back where it belongs, which is on the perpetrator. And the society
that enables it."
According to ABC News in 2013, Ashley Judd uncovered a tracking device on her car and
immediately filed a police report, suggesting her half-sister Wynonna Judd was to blame.
It turned out that the device was registered to a private investigator working for Wynonna.
Police reports say that Wynonna gave the device to her ex-husband, Arch Kelley the Third,
who tagged the car. In a bizarre twist, the car was never driven by Ashley, but by Wynonna
and Arch's 17-year-old daughter, Grace. Ashley believed the device was planted due to an
ongoing custody dispute between herself and Wynonna, as Grace was in Ashley's care.
According to another article by ABC News, Ashley released a statement about the family
drama saying,
"The issue at hand is the illegal violation of my privacy in that a tracking device was
secretly and unlawfully placed on my vehicle. For my safety and that of everyone around
me, I naturally filed a police report, as any citizen would and should."
In 2007, Wynonna's life changed forever after her second husband, D.R. Roach, was arrested
on charges of assault and battery against a child. Wynnona told Ladies' Home Journal,
"My first response when it happened was, I am a mother first and foremost."
Despite the news, Wynonna claims she knew the type of man she married, saying,
"I knew what I was getting into and I tried to change it. I knew that both Roach and I
had issues with addiction when I married him. I know my life. I know the people I chose,
I know why I chose them and I really thought that I could change people through loving
them enough. It doesn't work that way."
Five days after Roach's arrest, Wynonna filed for divorce. She claims that singular action,
quote, "blew the door open to my soul."
According to Us Weekly, Wynonna wed Cactus Moser in June of 2012, with only her children
and her new husband's children present. No other family members were notified of the
ceremony. This surprised some because the Judd family lives in close proximity to one
another on a grand family farm in Tennessee. Wynonna explained her reasoning:
"I didn't want it to be about anyone but Cactus and me. Because to me, at the end of the day,
it's the children, Cactus, and me. I was so concerned about making this feel special for
them, everything fell away."
She also claims her self-esteem would have plummeted if her family was present adding,
"If I know Ashley, she would have re-positioned my dress, or mom would have given me a Kleenex
to stuff in my bra, or told me, I have something in my teeth. I just didn't want that. I just
wanted to get married!"
Despite all the fame and country-music glory, Naomi Judd's life hasn't been easy. In 2016,
she confessed to suffering from terrible depression. The 70-year-old told Good Morning America,
"What I've been through is extreme. My final diagnosis was severe depression. [It's] treatment
resistant because they tried me on every single thing they had in their arsenal."
Naomi says there were times she'd come home off the road and be confined to her house
for weeks on end, neglecting the life she worked so hard to build. She also intimated
that treating her mental condition has taken a physical toll, the years of medication causing
her face to swell and her hands to shake.
Long before Naomi Judd was a music queen in cowboy boots, she was a nurse in Nashville,
Tennessee. According to an article the star penned for Everyday Health, she worked in
the intensive care unit for years. In a workplace accident, Judd was stuck with a needle. Though
she didn't at first understand the consequences, her health began to decline in the late 1980s.
In 1989 she began suffering from headaches and nausea. Naomi chalked it up to her grueling
tour schedule, but later decided to see a doctor, who in 1990 diagnosed her with hepatitis
C.
"Hepatitis C, as in Cat."
"From a needle?"
"Right, back in 1990."
She was given just three years to live. However, subsequent treatment was a success. She told
The Chicago Tribune in 1998,
"I'm cured. I've not only overcome and survived, but I've thrived."
She owes her life to a drug called alpha interferon, and being one of the lucky 20% of patients,
quote, "whose body is free of the hepatitis C virus after [only using this] treatment."
Over the years, the tabloids have ruthlessly kept tabs on Wynonna Judd's weight. But in
2003, Wynonna spoke to Oprah about gaining control of her life and eating habits. Judd
candidly explained,
"I've dedicated my life to country music, I home school my children, I worked three
years on my record, I support, you know, 40 to 50 families, I have for 18 years, and I
never stopped. And I'm in trouble because I lost myself. I'm the woman who forgot to
put herself on the list. And I'm real tired…I don't have it together. I'm losing my way
here."
The country vocalist claims her weight drama started in her childhood after her parents
divorced. She said,
"I had been so alone those years of my life...I would get so hungry, I would get panicky."
Those bad habits followed her all the way through young adulthood, and Judd was at her
heaviest in 1998 after divorcing her first husband, Arch Kelley the Third.
By 2010, however, Wynonna had dropped a whopping 55 pounds, according to People. She told the
outlet,
"My weight was a symptom and not the problem. I used food to soothe and reward and I don't
do that anymore."
Ashley Judd experienced a notably chaotic childhood, going to 13 schools in 12 years
and shifting between different family caretakers. In an Interview with Glamour, the star admitted
that she strived to, quote, "behave perfectly in order to compensate for her lack of security"
during childhood. But the rigorous discipline proved impossible to sustain.
In 2006, the star checked herself into Texas rehab facility Shades of Hope Treatment Center.
She sought treatment for depression, isolation, and relational codependency, according to
Glamour.
Ashley made her decision after observing her sister Wynonna's efforts at personal improvement.
She concluded that because they were from the same family, they suffered from similar
emotional wounds. Ashley ended up staying in rehab for 47 days.
Sisters Wynonna and Ashley learned only later in life that they share different fathers.
Wynonna's father is Charles Jordan, not Michael C. Ciminella, whom Naomi married the same
year Wynonna was born. Michael and Naomi welcomed daughter Ashley four years later in 1968.
Wynonna found out in her 30's, telling Oprah in 2003,
"The first thing I said was, 'It's okay'. And of course I'm raging inside...and I've
just now come to realize...I'm really angry."
Ashley confessed to knowing the dark secret long before anyone else.
"I think not knowing the truth is what has messed her up rather than having found out.
I had more compassion and understanding for her because I knew. It's interesting that
I didn't consider it my place to tell her."
According to The Telegraph, Ashley Judd was the first actress to speak out against film
producer Harvey Weinstein in The New York Times' bombshell report.
Judd made a harassment complaint in October 2015, but she didn't name names. Two years
later, Judd revealed that the harasser was Weinstein and claimed that the producer allegedly
blacklisted her for rejecting his advances. She told ABC News,
"My career opportunities, after having been defamed by Harvey Weinstein, were significantly
diminished...My career was damaged because I rebuffed Mr. Weinstein's advances. I know
it for a fact."
The New York Times reports that Judd filed a lawsuit against Weinstein, quote, "for defamation
and sexual harassment." A judge later dismissed the harassment portion of the claim in January
2019, then paused the remaining portion of the suit in August 2019 until the conclusion
of Weinstein's simultaneous criminal trial.
In early 2020, Weinstein was convicted on 2 counts and sentenced to 23 years in prison.
According to Radar Online, Wynonna's daughter, Grace Pauline Kelley, was arrested in 2015
for, quote, "promotion of meth manufacture." A bag thrown from her car was found to contain
a "box of pseudoephedrine, and a receipt showing a purchase of Coleman fuel," both of which
are used to make methamphetamine.
In 2016, Kelley pleaded guilty and was able to reduce her felony charge to the misdemeanor
charge of meth possession. According to Radar Online, she was arrested later that year as
a, quote, "fugitive from justice". Her probation was revoked, and her case was transferred
to drug court.
That's where she pleaded guilty to, quote, "meth manufacture, delivery, sale and possession
with intent" and "evading arrest," which landed her jail time, extended probation, and 180
days of court-ordered rehab. Kelley ended up leaving rehab early and got sentenced to
eight years in prison, but according to People was released in 2019, six years early.
In 2012, Wynonna Judd's husband and touring drummer, Cactus Moser, endured a life-threatening
motorcycle accident.
According to CNN, the pair set out on separate bikes before a concert in South Dakota. Unfortunately,
Moser suffered a head-on collision with another vehicle. Moser's left leg was severed in the
event, and he was transported to a hospital where doctors amputated the rest of his leg
above the knee.
In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, Wynonna described the horrific ordeal.
"I run back, and he's just laying there and I hear nothing. And then I heard the most
beautiful sound on Earth, and that is him [breathing]."
According to Billboard, Wynonna continued her tour less than a month after the accident.
About 15 months later, her husband joined her again on stage. She told ET,
"One day you lose your leg, the next day you go on tour!"
The Judds have clearly been through a lot over the decades. In fact, Ashley was so fed
up with it when she was a child that, according to The Telegraph, she wanted to get as far
away from Naomi and Wynonna as possible. She said,
"I was ready to blow out of town and get started in the Peace Corps or bail on that and hit
Hollywood, my secret dream".
As we know, she chose the latter, but these days, it seems that the family actually has
a tight knit bond. Naomi told the Oprah Winfrey Network about her relationship with Ashley
in 2016,
"It's interesting how time changes things. Our relationship is so good because she comes
in the back door, she plops down on the kitchen couch, and she was telling us what all is
going on...she got up and she got ready to leave, and she said…"
"'This is my happy place.' She said 'as long as you guys are right here, this is my favorite
place in the world.'"
If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide
Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or text HOME to the Crisis Text Line at 741741.