Ashley Judd revealed Thursday that her mother Naomi Judd died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Ashley appeared on Good Morning America in an interview with Diane Sawyer to speak about her mother’s death.
The actress told Sawyer the Judd family chose to share Naomi’s cause of death to shed light on mental illness.
"She used a weapon… my mother used a firearm,” Ashley told Sawyer.
“That’s the piece of information that we are very uncomfortable sharing, but understand that we’re in a position that if we don’t say it someone else is going to,” she continued.
Ashley also said the family chose to reveal the cause of her mother’s death so that they could control the information being released before her autopsy was made public.
Naomi died on April 30, at the age of 76.
In a statement, her daughters said, “We lost our beautiful mother to the disease of mental illness."
The Kentucky-born singer of the Grammy-winning duo The Judds was set to be inducted to the Country Music Hall of Fame. But her daughter Naomi said she “couldn’t hang on until she was inducted into the Hall of Fame by her peers. That is the level of catastrophe of what was going on inside of her, 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.”
If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline can help. 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255) is available 24/7 across the United States.
