Ashley Judd has opened up about her mother, Naomi Judd’s, final moments and the poignant conversation they shared as she lay dying.
Country music legend Naomi died by suicide in 2022 at the age of 76. In a newly released two-part Lifetime docuseries, The Judd Family: Truth Be Told, Ashley remembered receiving texts from her mother the morning of her death that read “pls help.”
Ashley, now 57, recalled arriving at her mother’s home to find her “uncomfortable in her body,” as she paced around the kitchen, talking about how she “didn’t want to be here anymore.”
After Naomi eventually calmed down, that’s when she spoke to her daughter about why she “continued to live” despite her struggles with mental health.
“One of the things she said was me, and I said, ‘You don’t have to worry about me, Mom. I’m okay. I’m okay,’” Ashley said in the docuseries. “And she really clocked that in a really deep way.”
Naomi then made her way upstairs, where Ashley later followed to look for her mother. As the Double Jeopardy star called out for her mother, she received no response.
Finally, Ashley entered her mother’s bedroom, where she discovered Naomi had “harmed herself.” For the next half-hour, Ashley said she stayed with her mother, holding her and talking with her.
“The first thing I said to her was, ‘It’s okay, it’s okay. I’ve seen how much you’ve been suffering.’ And we just breathed together, and I talked to her and told her how much I loved her, and it’s okay to go,” the Kiss the Girls actor said.
“When she died, my most earnest wish was to make sure that she was relieved and absolved of her guilt and her shame. I was holding her hand. I was kissing her. She was so soft. She smelled so pretty.”
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Ashley is the youngest daughter of Naomi, whom she welcomed with her first husband, Michael Charles Ciminella. Naomi shared her oldest daughter, singer Wynonna Judd, 60, with her former boyfriend Charles Jordan.
Following Naomi’s death, Ashley released a statement on Instagram on behalf of herself and her sister Wynonna.
“Today we sisters experienced a tragedy. We lost our beautiful mother to the disease of mental illness. We are shattered,” she wrote. “We are navigating profound grief and know that as we loved her, she was loved by her public. We are in unknown territory.”
The Judd family told the AP in a separate statement: “We have always shared openly both the joys of being family as well as its sorrows, too. One part of our story is that our matriarch was dogged by an unfair foe. She was treated for PTSD and bipolar disorder, to which millions of Americans can relate.”
If you are based in the U.S., and you or someone you know needs mental health assistance right now, call National Suicide Prevention Helpline on 1-800-273-TALK (8255). The Helpline is a free, confidential crisis hotline that is available to everyone 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
If you are in another country, you can go to www.befrienders.org to find a helpline near you.
