Ashley Judd is opening up about her mother Naomi's suicide nearly two years after her death. The actor said that mental illness stole her mother from her family.
Judd appeared alongside the Biden Administration for the newly formed National Strategy for Suicide Prevention. She shared her owned experience on how mental illness sadly affected her own life and her family's lives.
"I'm here because I am my beloved mother's daughter and on the day she died, which will be the two-year anniversary in one week, the disease of mental illness was lying to her, and with great terror convinced her that it would never get better," Ashley, 56, said during an appearance at the White House on April 23.
Ashley took the moment to honor her mother's contribution to country music. She said she "left country music better than she found it." However, Naomi faced personal demons that plagued her off-stage. Ashley said her mother battled with mental illness for most of her life but never sought treatment.
Ashley Judd Faced Own Mental Illness Struggles
"My mother's death was traumatic and unexpected because it was death by suicide, and I found her," she later said. "And, so, it had this calamitous dynamic, my grief was in lockstep with trauma."
