TRAGIC TRUTH
Naomi Judd died in ‘suicide’ just one day before being inducted into Country Music Hall of Fame
MUSIC legend Naomi Judd's cause of death has reportedly been revealed as a suicide just one day before being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Judd took her own life on Saturday following years of mental health struggles, reported citing sources.
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The news comes just days after Judd's daughters, Ashley and Wynonna, announced their mother's, citing her death as a "disease of mental illness."
"Today we sisters experienced a tragedy. We lost our beautiful mother to the disease of mental illness. We are shattered," the sisters wrote on .
"We are navigating profound grief and know that as we loved her, she was loved by her public. We are in unknown territory."
The US Sun has reached out to Judd's representatives to try and confirm her cause of death.
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MENTAL HEALTH STRUGGLES
Judd detailed her struggle with mental health in a heartbreaking interview before her death.
In a 2016 interview with ABC's Robin Roberts, Judd revealed the “completely debilitating and life-threatening” depression she battled.
Judd also documented her struggles in her book, "River of Time: My Descent into Depression and How I Emerged with Hope."
When asked why she was willing to talk publicly about her battle, Judd said, "because what I've been through is extreme.”
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“Because it was so deep and so completely debilitating and life-threatening and because I have processed and worked so hard for these last four years.”
Judd recalls thinking, “If I live through this, I want someone to be able to see that they can survive.”
The singer said her struggles stemmed from being molested by a family member as a child.
“I think that's one of the reasons I wanted to write the book ... because I never acknowledged all the bad stuff that people did to me," she said.
Judd didn't have immediate family members there to support her, she said, so she had only herself to rely on.
“I had to realize that in a way I had to parent myself,” Judd said.
“We all have this inner child, and I needed, for the first time in my life, to realize that I got a raw deal, OK, now I'm a big girl. Put on your big girl pants and deal with it.
“I started in therapy and I call it radical acceptance,” she said. “Every day I exercised.”
'DARK HOLE OF DEPRESSION'
In 2017, Judd said in an interview on that at one point, "I didn't get off my couch for two years."
"I was so depressed that I couldn't move. My husband and my girlfriends and Ashley would come over and I would just go upstairs and lock the door to my bedroom."
Judd added that she even contemplated suicide.
"That’s how bad it can get,” she added.
“It’s hard to describe. You go down in this deep, dark hole of depression and you don’t think that there’s another minute."
She said at one point, her family called 911 in the middle of the night to get her the help she needed.
Through different treatments and therapies, including electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), Judd said she was able to stabilize.
"One of the things that happens with depression is throughout my life I've had a lot of tragedies ... and you just keep squelching it down, you just keep suppressing it and all of a sudden one day if you don't deal with it, this starts coming out sideways."
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COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAMER
Judd's death came the day before the mother-daughter duo, The Judds, were to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame at a ceremony on May 1.
“I didn’t prepare anything tonight because I knew mom would probably talk the most,” Wynonna told the audience at the Nashville ceremony.
“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.”
“I’m sorry that she couldn’t hang on until today,” a crying Ashley added.
The mother-daughter performers scored 14 No. 1 songs in a career that spanned nearly three decades.
After rising to the top of country music, they called it quits in 1991 after doctors diagnosed Naomi Judd with hepatitis.
The Judds’ hits included Love Can Build a Bridge in 1990, Mama He’s Crazy in 1984, Why Not Me in 1984, Turn It Loose in 1988, Girls Night Out in 1985, Rockin’ With the Rhythm of the Rain in 1986 and Grandpa in 1986.
Originally from Kentucky, Judd was working as a nurse when she and Wynonna started singing together professionally.
Their unique harmonies, together with elements of acoustic music, bluegrass and blues, made them stand out in the genre at the time.
The Judds released six studio albums and an EP between 1984 and 1991 and won nine Country Music Association Awards and seven from the Academy of Country Music.
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They earned a total of five Grammy Awards together on hits like Why Not Me and Give A Little Love.
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The Judds sang about family, the belief in marriage and the virtue of fidelity.
If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255) or text Crisis Text Line at 741741.
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