“As if I was a possible suspect”: Ashley Judd opens up about Naomi Judd’s death investigation and defends calls for privacy

In a personal essay published in The New York Times on Wednesday, Ashley Judd opened up about feeling "cornered" and "powerless" as the police continued investigating her mother Naomi Judd's death on April 30.

For those who do not know, the country singer died of s*icide and was found dead with a self-inflicted gunshot at her home in Nashville.

Months after the tragic news, Ashley Judd opened up about feeling like "a possible suspect" as she had to go through multiple police interviews after her mother Naomi Judd's sudden demise.

Calling April 30 “the most shattering day of my life," the 54-year-old actress urged the police to keep Naomi Judd and their family's privacy intact amid the investigations.

---

Exploring Ashley Judd's personal essay about Naomi Judd's death investigation

In a New York Times essay titled The Right to Keep Private Pain Private, Ashley Judd said that she found her mother Naomi Judd's "laboring body" that day and held it until the police arrived.

While opening up on the details, the actress explained the pain of losing a loved one and how the death investigations made it worse for the family to cope with the tragedy. Noting that the "horror" of the event would "worsen" if the details of the death investigation were revealed, Ashley penned:

"As my family and I continue to mourn our loss, the rampant and cruel misinformation that has spread about her death, and about our relationships with her, stalks my days. The horror of it will only worsen if the details surrounding her death are disclosed by the Tennessee law that generally allows police reports, including family interviews, from closed investigations to be made public.”

In August, Ashley Judd said that her family had filed a court petition to keep the investigative file from her mother Naomi Judd's case from being disclosed to the public. The actress asserted that the family has “secrets” and a “legal right to protect our privacy in this specific matter.”

Ashley also noted that she spoke to the police as a bereaved daughter because "many of us are socially conditioned to cooperate with law enforcement." She revealed that some of the questions that she was asked during Naomi Judd's death investigation were uncomfortable.

"I gushed answers to the many probing questions directed at me in the four interviews the police insisted I do on the very day my mother died — questions I would never have answered on any other day and questions about which I never thought to ask my own questions, including: Is your body camera on? Am I being audio recorded again? Where and how will what I am sharing be stored, used and made available to the public?"

Ashley Judd asserted that law enforcement officials should be "trained" on how to interact with the bereaved during sensitive situations. She revealed that she had to sit through "terrible" and "outdated interview procedures" while Naomi Judd's death investigation was on.

Previously, Ashley Judd and her sister Wynonna Judd announced Naomi Judd's death in a joint statement on social media. A portion of the statement read:

"We lost our beautiful mother to the disease of mental illness. We are shattered."

---

Just weeks before her tragic demise, the legendary singer had announced that she would be going on tour for the first time in 10 years with daughter Wynonna Judd. The mother-daughter duo reunited at the CMA Awards to give this news to their fans.

However, weeks later, Naomi was found dead in her Nashville home at the age of 76.