*Warning: This article includes comments about suicide.*
Ashley Judd is sharing new details about mom Naomi Judd‘s heartbreaking death.
During an interview with Diane Sawyer, which aired May 12 on Good Morning America, the actress revealed that she was at her mom and stepdad Larry Strickland‘s home in Tennessee on April 30 when Naomi died by suicide. “Mom said to me, ‘Will you stay with me?'” Ashley recalled to Diane. “And I said, ‘Of course I will.'”
While at the house, Ashley stepped outside to let in a friend who came to visit. After returning inside, Ashley told Diane, “I went upstairs to let her know that the friend was there and I discovered her. I have both grief and trauma from discovering her.”
Ashley also addressed her mom’s cause of death during her interview, sharing that she decided to speak out about it before information about Naomi’s passing becomes “public” without the family’s control.
“She used a weapon, my mother used a firearm,” Ashley said. “So that’s the piece of information that we are very uncomfortable sharing, but understand that we’re in a position that if we don’t say it someone else is going to.”
