Ashley Judd was an A-list movie star who worked on blockbuster films with big-name costars for over a decade.
She was linked to the best: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and Matthew McConaughey, to name a few.
Her female costars were just as impressive: Sandra Bullock, Natalie Portman and the inimitable Salma Hayek.
Judd even played the biggest pin-up Hollywood has ever seen – Marilyn Monroe – in 1996’s Norma Jean & Marilyn.
She’s spent the past decade in supporting roles, though she had some big hits in 2019, like The Dog’s Way Home.
But since injuring her leg in the Republic of Congo in 2021, Naomi Judd’s bombshell daughter has slowed down.
She also went to school: Judd graduated from the University of Kentucky in 2007, received a Master of Public Administration (MPA) degree from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in 2010 and enrolled at UC Berkeley in 2016 to earn a doctorate in public policy.
Ashley Judd was a top movie star in the 1990s; Seen on the left in the film Nobody Like You and on the right on the cover of GQ magazine
But she still posts often on Instagram and proves that she looks fantastic even in her mid-50s.
In April, Judd gave a moving speech about suicide prevention when she opened up about the sudden death of mother Naomi Judd, who died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The star appeared alongside other notable suicide prevention advocates – including singer Aloe Blacc and campaigner Shelby Rowe – at the event at the White House complex in Washington.
She opened up about her mother’s struggles with mental health, saying that on the day Naomi committed suicide ‘the The disease or mental illness lied to her and convinced her with great fear that things would never get better.’
It comes after Ashley told the heartbreaking moment she discovered her mother’s body after taking her own life at the age of 76 on April 30, 2022.
Ashley took the stage in a flowing white summer dress, but wrapped a burlap blanket over her legs as she took the microphone.
She began, “I am here because I am the daughter of my beloved mother and on the day she died, which will be the two year anniversary in a week, the The disease of mental illness lied to her and convinced her with great fear that things would never get better…
She was paired with the best: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Matthew McConaughey (seen with Matthew in A Time To Kill in 1996)
With Morgan Freeman in Kiss The Girls in 1997
With Bruce Greenwood in Double Jeopardy in 1999
An image from Double Jeopardy where she was in prison
Judd was a wealthy woman opposite Kevin Kline in 2004’s De-Lovely
“I am convinced that we deserve to be remembered, not only for the way we died, but also for the way we lived.”
Ashley shared further details about her mother as she revealed, “She also lived most of her life with an untreated and undiagnosed mental illness that lied to her and stole from her.
“It was stolen from our family and she deserved better.”
Naomi died of a single gunshot to the head and left a suicide note near her body in her home in Leiper’s Fork, Tennessee.
She suffered from “significant” anxiety, depression and bipolar disorder, according to an autopsy report.
Sharing her own experiences with depression, Ashley explained: “I’m also here because for the first time I can remember, I was abused by a man when I was seven years old.
‘Then I got childhood depression and I know the feeling that I didn’t want to be here, but I had a different experience because I went into treatment in 2006 for unresolved childhood grief and sexual trauma.
‘I have been recovering well for eighteen years and have had a different outcome than my mother. I convey a message of hope and recovery.’
Elsewhere, Ashley discussed the details of her “chosen family,” who she described as “so close and connected.”
She talked about how they had “walked beside her through the whole experience” of losing her mother.
The White House held the event on the day the annual National Suicide Prevention Strategy was released to highlight efforts to address the mental health crisis and overcome the overdose crisis.
In January, Ashley appeared on an episode of CNN’s All There Is with Anderson Cooper to discuss her mother’s death.
Ashley told of the heartbreaking moment she discovered her mother’s body after committing suicide at the age of 76 on April 30, 2022 (photo 2013).
Just two weeks before her shocking death, iconic country singer Naomi took the stage with her daughter Wynonna during a surprise reunion at the Country Music Awards (pictured)
Ashley said: “It was traumatic and unexpected because it was suicide and I found her,” but added that she was “so happy” she was there for her mother after her death.
“Even when I walked into that room and saw that she had hurt herself, the first thing out of my mouth was, ‘Mommy, I see how much you’ve suffered and it’s okay… I’m here, and it’s okay to to let go.”
Still breathtaking! In May, Judd looked radiant as she attended a screening for her film Lazareth in New York City
Last month, Ashley shared a photo with her sister Wynonna
And she was spotted enjoying dessert with this man
Judd was also pictured eating an ice cream cone
Meanwhile, in 2022, Ashley Judd opened up about her traumatic accident in Congo in 2021.
She could have been dead.
The siren shattered her right leg in four places while walking through a forest in the Democratic Republic of Congo in February 2021.
Judd told Kate Roberts on her podcast Sex, Body & Soul. Judd said she barely survived the 55-hour rescue and was in terrible pain.
“I don’t know how the mind, body and soul come together to endure the unbearable,” she said. ‘I bit a stick, I screamed, I cried, I convulsed. I never fainted; I wish I could.”
Judd lay on the forest floor for five hours before she was rescued by her ‘Congolese brothers’.