Ashley Judd has shared her mother Naomi Judd’s cause of death, opening up about the suicide in an emotional interview.
“She used a weapon. My mother used a firearm,” Judd told Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America Thursday. “So that’s the piece of information 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.”
Naomi Judd died just one day before she and her daughter Wynonna were going to be inducted for their Grammy-winning music duo, The Judds.
Both Ashley and Wynonna announced their mother’s death on April 30, writing that they lost their “beautiful mother to the disease of mental illness.”
While speaking to Sawyer, Ashley recognized that the interview was being conducted quickly after her mother’s death, yet explained that she wanted to share more information on the tragedy before someone else did.
Ashley also discussed finding her mother on the day she died, saying, “I have both grief and trauma from discovery.”
“It was a mixed day,” she said. “I visit with my mom and pop every day when I’m home in Tennessee, so I was at the house visiting as I am every day. Mom said to me, ‘Will you stay with me?’ and I said, ‘Of course I will.’… I went upstairs to let her know that her good friend was there and I discovered
The actress went on to address her mother’s mental illness, explaining the importance of separating the person from the disease.
“My mother knew that she was seen and she was heard in her anguish. She was walked home,” she said, tearing up. “When we’re talking about mental illness, it’s very important to be clear and make the distinction between our loved one and the disease. It’s very real. It lies, it’s savage. My mother, our mother, couldn’t hang on until she was inducted into the Country Hall of Fame by her peers.”
Ashley depicted how “the lie the disease told her was so convincing,” adding that her mother’s mental illness compelled her to believe she was not enough, loved, or worthy.
“And her brain hurt, it physically hurt, and I’m tasked with an exceedingly difficult task in disclosing the manner of the way my mother chose not to continue to live,” she continued.
Watch above, via ABC.