From the outside looking in, Naomi and Wynonna Judd were the perfect country duo, a mother and daughter whose voices blended like one. To fans, they were a symbol of unity, talent, and the kind of bond many hoped for with their own families. But behind the smiles and microphones, the Judd family was carrying pain that even the brightest spotlight couldn’t hide.
In the new A&E docuseries The Judds: Truth Be Told, Wynonna and her sister Ashley shed light on their lives growing up with Naomi, revealing a complicated relationship shaped by trauma, absence, and unhealed wounds. Though Naomi rose to fame as part of The Judds, her daughters say she never truly left behind the pain of her past. And that pain didn’t just affect her; it traumatized them too.
Naomi Judd brought her unresolved trauma into motherhood
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Wynonna Judd has often said she loved her mother deeply. In the docuseries, she confesses, “I’ve loved her more than I’ve loved myself.” But that love was tangled with fear, duty, and unmet needs. Naomi, who became a mother at a young age, brought her own unresolved trauma into motherhood. She had a critical mother, lost a younger brother as a child, and was left to figure out life while raising two daughters on her own.
As Wynonna Judd puts it, “She did not get what she needed as a child.” That lack of care became a pattern passed on. Wynonna says she was “not allowed to be a child” either, stepping into the role of the adult long before her time. Ashley, the youngest, describes feeling abandoned, left to raise herself while their mother chased a dream and later battled depression.
The girls lived through abuse, instability, and long stretches without their mom around. At one point, Naomi dated a man Wynonna called “creepy.” Ashley remembers being dangled out of a window by that man. Wynonna recalls protecting her younger sister when their mother wasn’t home. It wasn’t just a rough childhood; it was survival.
Much of what the Judd sisters experienced was never spoken about until now. Naomi, who died by suicide in 2022, had long hidden her struggles. Wynonna believes her mother’s death was partly the result of generational trauma that was never addressed.
“She was in love with me and terrified of me,” Wynonna says, explaining how their relationship was both close and strained. Naomi was scared of what she couldn’t control, perhaps it was Wynonna’s independence, her pain, or the reflection of herself in her daughter’s eyes.
Ashley added that their mother lived with “a constellation of her sufferings.” Her depression, made worse by unhealed trauma, often left Ashley to care for herself. She remembers going through chickenpox alone in a motel and even being raped while modeling abroad as a teen. When she told her mom about it, Naomi didn’t react with comfort; instead, she dismissed it.
Wynonna Judd struggled with body image and self-worth due to her mother’s criticism
Still, Ashley chooses to describe her experience as “a description, not an indictment.” In her words, “Everyone was doing the best they could.”
For Naomi and Wynonna, music was both the glue that held them together and the source of tension. Onstage, they were magic. But offstage, their bond cracked under pressure. Wynonna struggled with body image and self-worth, issues tied to being molested at 12 and carrying the expectation to be perfect in the spotlight. She says food became a way to soothe the pain she didn’t know how to express.
“Mom was very hard on me,” she admits. “She would say, ‘If you lost 20 pounds, you’d be a pop star.’” Naomi’s confidence on stage sometimes irritated Wynonna, who had not yet made peace with her own body or voice. “She was foxy and ready to rumble,” Wynonna joked. “But I was so aggravated by her sexuality.” It wasn’t jealousy, it was confusion, hurt, and unresolved trauma bubbling to the surface.
Naomi Judd may have been a star, but behind the scenes, she was also a woman searching for healing. Her daughters, now older and wiser, are still picking up the pieces.