Born Diana Ellen Judd, she lived in the United States as an actress and singer of country music from January 11, 1946, to April 30, 2022. She founded The Judds with her daughter Wynonna (born Christina Claire) in 1980.
The group went on to become a massive success in the country music industry, taking home five Grammy honors and nine honors from the Country Music Association. Naomi battled mental health problems all of her life.
April 30, 2022, the day before she and Wynonna were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, she passed away from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Naomi Judd Cause of Death
The autopsy on singer Naomi Judd verified that she died of a gunshot wound to the head and also found a suicide note near her body. In a comprehensive autopsy report released Friday by the Nashville medical examiner’s office, details of the 76-year-old’s mental health difficulties were brought to light.
RIP.
Country music legend Naomi Judd’s cause of death revealed as suicide: reporthttps://t.co/3byUiDgmG0— Nurses Against Dick Pics. 🇺🇦 (@ClaudetteGGibs1) May 3, 2022
According to the article, Judd struggled with bipolar disorder, sadness, and anxiety. Regarding her mental health, Judd was extremely forthright at all times. Additionally, a suicide note was discovered beside her body, according to the autopsy.
Ashley, Naomi’s daughter, found out her mom had shot herself in May after she had already committed suicide in April. Ashley stated in a recent interview, “Her brain hurt, it physically hurt, and I’m tasked with an exceedingly difficult task in disclosing the matter in the way my mother chose to continue to live.”
Ashley further came clean about her role in finding Naomi’s body, stating, “It was a mixed day. I visit with my mom and pop every day when I’m home in Tennessee, so I was at the house visiting as I am every day. Mom said to me, ‘Will you stay with me?’ and I said, ‘Of course, I will.’ … I went upstairs to let her know that her good friend was there, and I discovered her. I have both grief and trauma from discovering her.”
If you want to check out other celebrities’ causes of death, then you can read these articles:
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- Torben Ulrich Cause of Death: A Legendary Tennis Player and Cultural Icon Dies at 95
Naomi Judd’s Early Life
Pauline Ruth “Polly” (née Oliver) and Charles Glen Judd welcomed their son Judd into the world in Ashland, Kentucky, on January 11, 1946. Her mom was a riverboat cook, and her dad had a petrol station.
At 17, her brother Brian passed away from leukemia in 1965; at 18, Naomi Judd gave birth to her first child, Wynonna Judd, whose given name is Christina Claire Ciminella. The first of her daughters, Wynonna, was given the surname Ciminella by her mother.
Michael Ciminella was the man who Wynonna’s real father, Charles Jordan, abruptly dumped Judd for, and she married him shortly after. Judd raised her two daughters, Ashley (1968) and Wynonna (1980), as a single parent after her marriage to Ciminella ended.
She went to nursing school at the College of Marin in California while living in Lagunitas, California, and went on to have a successful singing career with Wynonna. Ashley went on to become an actress in film and theater. Following her divorce, she went back to her maiden name.
She used the chance to change her name from Diana, which she felt did not reflect “her own spiritual, rural Kentucky conception of her true heritage,” to Naomi, after the biblical character who was left to raise two women alone after migrating to a new land.
Naomi Judd’s Career
The Judds were a phenomenally successful musical duo that Naomi co-founded with her daughter Wynonna. The most famous mother-daughter duo in country music had twenty top ten singles, including fifteen number ones, and they were unbeaten for eight years in a row at the three main country music awards shows.
They received a plethora of accolades, including five Grammys. “Love Can Build a Bridge” was Naomi’s winning entry for the Grammy for Country Song of the Year.
Following Naomi Judd’s 1991 hepatitis C diagnosis, the Judds quickly ended their marriage. As far as cable pay-per-view concerts go, the band’s farewell performance set a new record.
After using her harrowing ordeal as a spokeswoman for the American Liver Foundation, Judd established the Naomi Judd Education and Research Fund in 1991 to bring attention to the hepatitis C virus.
In 1993, the American Academy of Achievement bestowed the Golden Plate Award to her. After receiving interferon-alpha treatment for hepatitis C in 1998, she was virologically cured.
Ashley served as the show’s master of ceremonies when the Judds reunited for a 1999 New Year’s Eve performance in Phoenix’s America West Arena. On their “Power to Change” tour in 2000, the Judds reunited for 30 shows, attracting an audience of more than 300,000 people.
They were up for best vocal duet at the 2001 Academy of Country Music Awards. Judd served as a judge on Arsenio Hall’s updated Star Search from 2003 to 2004.
In 2005, Judd launched Hallmark Channel’s Sunday morning discussion show Naomi’s New Morning. Two seasons were airing on the show. Self-Help Books by Naomi: A Grateful Aging Guide (Facts, Myths, and Good News for Boomers, 2007) was one of her many works.
Judd became a judge and mentor on the 2008 season of the reality singing competition Can You Duet. You might watch it on CMT. In 2017, she and her husband, Larry Strickland, competed in the first season of My Kitchen Rules, a reality cooking show broadcast by Fox Broadcasting.
