NAOMI JUDD GUNSHOT NIGHTMARE!
Beloved country singer’s tragic suicide shrouded by secrecy & heartache
TORMENTED country music legend Naomi Judd died from a selfinflicted gunshot wound — but police and her family deliberately buried the devastating details of the tragic suicide, sources tell GLOBE.
Nashville icon Naomi, 76, who had a long history of depression and mental illness, came to her heartbreaking end on April 30 inside the farmhouse she shared with her husband of 32 years, Larry Strickland, 76, insiders reveal.
Her shattered daughters, Wynonna, 57, and Ashley Judd, 54, also live on the 1,000-acre
Franklin, Tenn., spread and were devastated when they discovered Naomi had killed herself just hours before she and Wynonna were scheduled to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame for their stellar career as The Judds. Wynonna, who shared five Grammy Awards with her mom, and actress sister Ashley made a tearful appearance at the awards ceremony. Ashley told the audience, “My momma loved you so much, and she appreciated your love for her. And I’m sorry that she couldn’t hang on until today.”
Her big sister revealed her final moments with her mom: “At 2:20, I kissed her on the forehead and walked away. The last thing we did together as a family, with her, was we all gathered around her and we said, ‘The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.’”
The showbiz siblings decided to announce Naomi had succumbed to “mental illness.” But the facts surrounding the family’s nightmare slowly emerged — Mama Judd had plunged into a dark pit and taken her own life. However, days later the family would only say the tragedy was under police investigation.
Tennessee’s Williamson County Sheriff’s Department was also tight-lipped about Naomi’s death.
Pressed for details on how
the superstar ended her life, the department’s spokesperson would only say: “This is a death investigation which is ongoing,” adding lawmen would not release any police reports, 911 calls or body camera-dashboard camera videos — if there are any.
“We are awaiting information from the detectives from the criminal investigation division.”
Naomi bared her life-anddeath struggle with mental illness in her 2016 book, River of Time: My Descent into Depression and How I Emerged with Hope. She revealed she was so desperate to end her mental torture, she resorted to electroshock therapy. She was once locked in a psycho ward and contemplated suicide in 2016, according to her book.
Friends say the Have Mercy singer frequently relied on a heavy cocktail of powerful drugs including Prozac, benzodiazepines and prednisone to ease her mental agony and fear her mind was clouded.
“She definitely wasn’t in her right mind,” a source spills.
Ironically, Naomi had agreed to a farewell tour with Wynonna — and tickets went on sale a week before the nightmare unfolded.
Insiders say she was suffering crippling panic attacks about returning to the stage and fears of performing again may have “served as a trigger” for her anxiety.
“Naomi was scared to death about going out on tour again after not performing for so long,” according to a source, who claims she was also terrified she’d lost her looks.
“For years, she loved the fact that people always asked if she and Wynonna were sisters because she was so beautiful and youthful looking!” an insider notes.
“But medication she was taking for depression caused her hands and face to balloon to the point where she was almost unrecognizable. For a proud woman, that was devastating.”
At the end, the source says “Naomi was feeling every one of her 76 years and thought she faced a bleak future where she was never going to get better.”
Now Wynonna vows to tour alone, saying, “Though my heart is broken, I will continue to sing, because that’s what we do.”