Ashley Judd: ‘Undiagnosed’ Mental Illness ‘Stole’ Mom Naomi

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Ashley Judd said her mother Naomi Judd fought an “untreated and undiagnosed mental illness” for years before she died by suicide on April 30, 2022.

The 56-year-old actor opened up about her mother’s story Tuesday while promoting the Biden Administration’s newly formed National Strategy for Suicide Prevention at the White House.

“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,” Judd shared during an address to the panel, according to People.

She went on to explain that Naomi Judd had been a “survivor of childhood and adult male sexual violence” and was fighting an unseen disease.

“She also lived most of her life with an untreated and undiagnosed mental illness that lied to her and stole from her and it stole from our family, and she deserved better,” Ashley Judd explained.

In a police report cited by the Daily Mail in 2023, an officer wrote that Naomi Judd’s husband, Larry Strickland, was traveling in Europe at the time of her death.

“She threatened to kill herself a half a dozen times; guns were involved,” the report read, according to the Daily Mail. “She locked herself in her bedroom. She would threaten to shoot the people who took her (illegible).”

The report also confirmed that Ashley Judd discovered Naomi Judd in bed with a gunshot wound to the head and called an ambulance. The report noted that, just before the shooting, Ashley Judd called family doctor Dr. Ted Klontz claiming her mother was in a manic state.

Klontz attended to Naomi Judd but after he left, Ashley Judd discovered her mother with a bullet wound to the head, according to the report, Daily Mail reported.

If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 or go to suicidepreventionlifeline.org.