Naomi Judd, who died Saturday at age 76 due to “mental illness,” has been open about her battle with depression throughout her decades-long career.
During an interview on “Good Morning America” in 2016, the “Love Can Build a Bridge” singer revealed that she was dealing with “extreme” and “severe depression,” which left her home-bound. Judd’s condition deteriorated after she and daughter Wynonna stopped touring as The Judds in 2011.
†[Fans] see me in rhinestones, you know, with glitter in my hair, that’s really who I am,” she told Robin Roberts. “But then I would come home and not leave the house for three weeks, and not take off my pajamas, and not practice normal hygiene. It was really bad.”
“When I got off the tour, I went into this deep, dark, absolutely terrifying hole and I couldn’t get out,” she confessed. “I spent two years on my couch.”
She even said she had seriously considered committing suicide on a bridge near her farm.
Naomi wrote a book in 2016 called “River of Time: My Descent into Depression and How I Emerged with Hope,” explaining that she made her diagnosis — which ended up being treated with drugs and electroshock therapy — because she wanted people to know that mental illness “isn’t a character flaw, it’s a stinking illness.”
Naomi’s daughters, Wynonna and Ashley, have also been candid about their respective battles with depression and anxiety during their own Hollywood tenures.
Wynonna, 57, told Page Six last year that she attempted suicide at age 18 and is still going through bouts of depression.
“I have thoughts where I say to myself, ‘This is too much,’ and then I call someone,” she told us. “I will literally call someone because I was stuck in my grief where I didn’t and we need to get in touch and that was the hardest thing for me because I’m not good at asking for help and that’s all.”
Wynonna added that she has “thoughts all the time about how hard this life is.”
“If you live on a farm, you think, ‘Oh, I could just jump into a lake.’ But then I think I should stay for my grandchildren and make more music… A mentor once said to me, ‘Don’t leave until the miracle happens,’ she said.
Wynonna’s younger half-sister, actress Ashley Judd, has also spoken openly about her struggles.
In 2006, the 54-year-old “Double Jeopardy” star revealed that she spent 47 days in a Texas treatment center for depression and other emotional problems.
Ashley told Glamor magazine that she went to the Shades of Hope Treatment Center because of “codependency in my relationships, depression, blaming, being angry, numbing, denying and minimizing my feelings.
“But because my addictions were behavioral, not chemical, I wouldn’t have known I had to seek treatment. At Shades of Hope, my behavior was treated like an addiction. And that behavior was killing me mentally, just like someone sitting on a corner sits with a bottle in a brown paper bag.”
In 2012, Ashley released “All That Is Bitter and Sweet: A Memoir,” detailing her tumultuous childhood and mental health issues.
If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues discussed in this story, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255) or text Crisis Text Line at 741741.