Naomi Judd Was Candid About Her Depression And Mental Health Struggles

Singer Naomi Judd, part of the Grammy-winning duo The Judds and mother of Wynonna and Ashley Judd passed away on Saturday at the age of 76.

Her daughters announced her death in a statement provided to The Associated Press. “Today we sisters experienced a tragedy. We lost our beautiful mother to the disease of mental illness,” the statement said. “We are shattered. We are navigating profound grief and know that as we loved her, she was loved by her public. We are in unknown territory.” The Judds were scheduled to be inducted into the County Music Hall of Fame on Sunday.

Judd had been extremely open about her mental health struggles in recent years and wasn't shy about sharing the candid details of what it was like living with depression.

In 2016, the “Love Can Build a Bridge” singer said that she suffered from “extreme” and “severe depression” in an interview with Good Morning America. She explained that her depression only got worse when she and her daughter, Wynonna, stopped touring in 2011.

“[Fans] see me in rhinestones, you know, with glitter in my hair, that really is who I am,” she told host Robin Roberts at the time. “But then I would come home and not leave the house for three weeks, and not get out of my pajamas, and not practice normal hygiene. It was really bad.”

“When I came off the tour I went into this deep, dark absolutely terrifying hole and I couldn’t get out,” she admitted. “I spent two years on my couch.”

That same year, Naomi had written a book called “River of Time: My Descent into Depression and How I Emerged With Hope.” In the book, she confessed that she had seriously considered taking her own life on a bridge near her farm.

She also explained why she went public with her diagnosis of depression, which doctors treated with drugs and electroshock therapy.

She even shared that she had seriously considered taking her own life at a bridge near her farm. She said that she wanted to be out with her diagnosis, because, in her words, she wanted people to know that mental illness is “not a character flaw. It’s a stinking disease.”

Naomi’s daughters, Wynonna and Ashley, have also been vocal about their own struggles with depression and anxiety.

In 2021, Wynonna, 57, told Page Six that she tried to take her own life when she was eighteen. She admitted that she still has bouts of depression now and again that she needs help managing.

“I have thoughts where I say to myself, ‘This is too much,’ and then I call somebody,” she told the outlet. “I literally will call somebody because I have been stuck in my sadness where I didn’t and we have to reach out and that’s been the hardest thing for me because I’m not good at asking for help and that’s it.”

Wynonna explained that she has “thoughts all the time about how hard this life is.” She explained, “When you live on a farm you think, ‘Oh, I could just jump in a lake.’ But then I think I’ve got to stick around for my grandkids and make more music … A mentor once said to me, ‘Don’t leave until the miracle happens.’”

In 2006, her half-sister, Ashley, 54, also spent 47 days in a Texas treatment facility for depression and other struggles.

The “Double Jeopardy” star told Glamour magazine that she entered the Shades of Hope Treatment Center for “codependence in my relationships, depression, blaming, raging, numbing, denying, and minimizing my feelings.”

“But because my addictions were behavioral, not chemical, I wouldn’t have known to seek treatment,” she went on. “At Shades of Hope, my behaviors were treated like addictions. And those behaviors were killing me spiritually, the same as someone who is sitting on a corner with a bottle in a brown paper bag.”

In 2012, Ashley released her own memoir called “All That Is Bitter and Sweet: A Memoir” which chronicled her own struggles with mental health.

If you or someone you know would like to seek help, call the National Suicide Prevent Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK or text Crisis Text Line at 741741. Both services are available 24/7.