Wynonna Judd entered the public eye as the daughter in the mother-daughter duo The Judds alongside her now-late mother, Naomi. Despite her making a name for herself in the '90s and beyond as a solo artist, Wynonna's legacy remains inseparable of that of her mother, with whom she shares a spot in the Country Music Hall of Fame, and sister Ashley Judd, a Hollywood star.
After charting her own path in country music, Wynonna added to one of the genre's first families as a mother of two. The births of Wynonna's kids — 28-year-old son Elijah Judd and 27-year-old daughter Grace Pauline Kelley — impacted her outlook on her career.
"I used to do anything for acceptance," she told the Tampa Bay Times in 1997. "Now as a mother, I stand there and say, 'Here's who I am, take me as I am,' I have a separate identity from that stage. I come home and I'm a mama."
Parenthood also reframed a sometimes-rocky relationship between Wynonna and Naomi.
"When you're a mother, I don't care how old you are, that love is so pure and so heavy," Wynonna said (as quoted by Parade). "I learned that my mother used to hold me [as a baby]. That time that was so pure before you grow up and say, 'I hate you.' It reminds you of how you and your mother started out."
Read on to meet Wynonna's two children as well as her first grandchild.
Jim Smeal/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images Wynonna and her husband from 1995-'98, businessperson Arch Kelley III, welcomed their first child on Dec. 23, 1994. Elijah has mostly stayed out of the public eye as an adult. He works for the Williamson County Sheriff's Office, which is a county away from Nashville. He married longtime partner Hailey Williams on Oct. 17, 2020. An early holiday gift in 1994, Elijah fittingly sang background vocals on his mom's 2006 album "A Classic Christmas." In 2021, Wynonna celebrated her son's birthday on Instagram, writing that she's "so proud of the man that you have become." Bruce Glikas/FilmMagic Wynonna gave birth to her second child with Arch Kelley III on June 21, 1996. Grace welcomed her first child, Kaliyah, on April 13, 2022 — shortly before Naomi's death by suicide. Once again, a new branch of the Judd family tree challenged Wynonna to re-access her outlook on her life, career and legacy. "She gives me hope," Wynonna told Today. "They give you hope; they give you something to think about other than yourself. Because so much of what we do is about us, it's nice to be with her because she doesn't care what I look like."Elijah Judd
Grace Pauline Kelley
