On May 8, Wynonna and Ashley Judd honored their late mother, country icon Naomi Judd, on their first Mother’s Day without the singer. After battling mental illness for many years, the star committed suicide on April 30 at age 76.
With their debut album, Naomi and Wynonna Judd became the first mother-daughter country music duo to make it big in 1983. The relationship between Naomi and Wynonna had its ups and downs over the years. Naomi told Good Morning America that she suffered from severe depression, and her relationship with Wynonna was complicated.
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“They see me in rhinestones — you know, with glitter in my hair — that really is who I am. 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,” Judd revealed. “It was really bad.”
“Through the decades, we kind of grew up together and I’m always telling her, ‘If I’d known better I would’ve done better,’” she said. The Judds experienced many hardships in their lives and many incredible things. Looking back at Naomi and her oldest daughter Wynonna, we see their loving but complicated relationship.
Naomi and Wynonna Planned ‘The Final Tour.’
Before Naomi Judd’s passing, she and Wynonna planned to embark on a final tour titled, appropriately, The Final Tour. The 10-date event was set to kick off on September 30 in Michigan and conclude on October 28 in Nashville.
“The fans have always been my family of choice,” Naomi Judd said in a statement. “I love them dearly, so I’m chompin’ at the bit to belt out our hits and reconnect with them once again. The cherry on top is singing with my beloved, wild, and extremely talented daughter… the best singer of any genre, Wynonna! She asked me if I was still going to twist, twirl and crack jokes. I answered,’ Heck yeah! I’m too old to grow up now!’”
It was the Judds’ third effort in putting a definite end to their career. They played what was promoted as their final show in 1991 after Naomi was diagnosed with Hepatitis C. The Last Encore Tour was billed as the last tour a decade later. It was the last time they toured together, but they would reunite in 2015 for a nine-show residency at the Venetian Girls Night Out.
Wynona and her team said they want to respect Naomi’s commitment to her fans and the music community. A source told People. “The family is meeting this week to talk about the state of the upcoming tour to see how and if it can proceed in an obviously different incarnation.” The source clarified. “They want to be respectful and representative of their legacy, but more importantly as to what Naomi would have wanted for her family and fans.”
‘Joy and Laughter’ on ‘The Judds’
In 2011, Naomi and Wynonna uncovered their family secrets in their OWN reality TV show, The Judds. The six-part series was filmed in 2010 and told the story of the duo’s first concert tour together in ten years. “I hope this show can be a testimony to what happens when you are ready to show up and roll your sleeves up and get real and let secrets fly and lift the veil and be known,” Wynonna told The Daily Mail.
Neither mother nor daughter had any creative control over the series. “We had to allow them to take us for who we are, and boy did they. I know there are going to be moments where the viewers will say they can relate to me or my mom,” Wynonna said. Both women were candid about sensitive topics on the show, revealing that they were sexually abused as children, and Ashley also opened up about being raped.
Wynonna was convinced to participate in the TV documentary by her life coach. “The coach said, ‘If there are any two people that I know, to know how far you guys have come, you have to do this because you deserve to celebrate where your relationship is now.’ So we said yes,” she said.
There is a particularly moving scene in the TV documentary when Wynonna sings the song she wrote for her mother. “It’s hard to sing it knowing it’s so personal and so many people will see it,” she said.
Despite all of the conflict and drama, she mentioned that the series has a lot of humorous moments.”Like when my mom is being her usually silly self, and I want to pull her hair out.”There was a lot of joy and laughter. I told the director I wanted him to put a lot of those moments in too.”
‘Naomi Judd’s Kid’
In 1991, ABC News reported that Naomi was forced to retire due to her hepatitis C diagnosis. Hepatitis C is a viral infection spread by the blood that causes liver inflammation, according to the Mayo Clinic. According to Heavy,
doctors initially gave her three years to live, but she surpassed the sentence by decades.
Despite Wynonna’s desire to experience more freedom as a musician, becoming a solo artist overnight was a daunting experience. At 27, she had not yet developed her own identity apart from her mother and became aware of how dependent she was.
“My identity for 27 years has been ‘Naomi Judd’s kid,’ and that crosses over the whole spectrum of things,” she told The Baltimore Sun. “Whether it’s designing clothes to picking out wallpaper in my house, to ‘Gee, I hope she likes the guy I’m dating’ — all that. She did everything but cut up my meat for me. I hate to admit that, but it’s true.”
‘My Beloved Enemy’
The Judds were in perfect harmony as a successful country music duo, but their relationship could be volatile. Naomi admitted in 2016, “I love her, but there are just times we need a break from each other.”In a 2016 interview with ABC’s Robin Roberts on Good Morning America, she said, “We’re still a little estranged from each other. And that happens with mother, daughters … Through the decades, we kind of grew up together and I’m always telling her, ‘If I’d known better I would’ve done better.’ Wy bore the brunt of all of the mistakes I made and we talk about ’em. We’ve been through a lot of therapy together.”
Ex-manager Ken Stilts revealed that during Wynonna and Naomi’s success in the 1980s, the two were “at each other’s throats every minute of the day.” He also said, “they performed many times with sunglasses so you couldn’t see they had been crying.” Wynonna was known to have called her mother “my beloved enemy.”
Naomi elaborated on her relationship with her oldest daughter, explaining on Good Morning America that they often spent time apart. She explained, “I love her but there are just times we need a break from each other. We’re still a little estranged from each other. And that happens with mother, daughters. If she sees this, and I hope she does, ’cause the smartest thing is for all of us to feel known, no matter what’s goin’ on.”
The complicated mother-daughter relationship has, in part, been played out in the spotlight, resulting in an overly emotional relationship between Wynonna and Naomi. Moreover, Naomi would conceal her depression from Wynonna for more than a year before finally coming clean about it after more than a week in a psychiatric ward.
Naomi told People she kept Wynonna at a distance out of concern about how her daughter would react to her illness. “We are so empathic, we can look at each other and absolutely fall in each other’s arms crying without saying a word. We scare each other because we can go so deep.”
While Naomi acknowledged that she made mistakes with Wynonna, but told CBS News that they always remained united. “From the day I knew she existed, it was the two of us against the world. Through the decades, we kind of grew up together and I’m always telling her, ‘If I’d known better I would’ve done better.”
‘Better or Bitter’
Wynonna assumed growing up that her mother’s husband, Michael Ciminella, was her biological father. She even took his last name, christened Christina Claire Ciminella, at birth, reported Fox News. However, the truth was that her father was a man named Charles Jordan, Taste of Country revealed. Naomi did not tell her daughter until she was 30 years old that Charles had left after falling pregnant.
Wynonna intended to meet Jordan, but he passed away one month before they could see each other. She was also troubled because her parents continuously lied about essential information. The singer opened up to Oprah in 2006 about how difficult it was for her to get over the pain. She said, “The first thing I said was, ‘It’s okay.’ And of course I’m raging inside … and I’ve just now come to realize nine years later, I’m really angry.”
Naomi also explained to Oprah that she wanted Wynonna to have the same last name as the rest of her family, but, looking back, she regrets not telling her the truth. “I don’t know that I thought about it every day of my life, but there were certainly very few days that I didn’t live with this secret and I think it does something to a child,” she said.
Interestingly, Ashley knew about Wynonna’s father and told the former talk show host that she believed her mother’s deception had damaged Wynonna more than a different father.
Once Wynonna came to terms with having these secrets exposed, she discovered she had a younger half-brother named Michael Jordan, who lives in Kentucky. She spoke to Heavy about how she coped with the emotional turmoil. “I had a choice. I had to decide whether I was better or bitter.”
‘We Could Sing Together’
The Judds appeared to embody the prototypical “rags to riches” narrative, but their success comes from strife and sacrifice. Originally from Ashland, Kentucky, Naomi became pregnant with Wynonna when she was 17 and gave birth two weeks before her graduation ceremony. She then moved to California, where she had her second daughter, actress Ashley Judd. Following the dissolution of her marriage, Naomi enrolled in nursing school in Berea, Kentucky, and moved to the small town of Morrill.
Wynonna Judd spoke openly and candidly about her childhood during an interview on Larry King Live in 2005. The singer confessed to Larry King that she defined herself as a latchkey kid, as Naomi worked multiple jobs to keep things afloat. Wynonna and Ashley were often alone, so she felt deeply responsible for her younger sister. Both girls reportedly wore secondhand clothes and occasionally lived without electricity or indoor plumbing in rural Kentucky.
Wynonna recalled a challenging upbringing. “If we didn’t make it or grow it, we didn’t have it.” According to PBS, Wynonna began playing the guitar, and she and Naomi started harmonizing after completing chores each evening, easing tensions between the two.”Wynonna and I couldn’t talk to each other, but, low and behold, we could sing together,” Naomi told PBS. “[The] songs were not just a balm between the two of us, but they were teaching Wynonna the history of country music.”
