The younger Judd appeared in an interview with Diane Sawyer on Thursday’s Good Morning America. She said her family had agreed to share the cause of her mother’s death.
“She used a weapon,” Ashley Judd said. “Firearms. So that’s part of the information that we’re very uncomfortable sharing.”
She and her sister, Winona Judd, announced on April 30 that they had lost their mother “due to mental illness.” She was 76.
Ashley Judd said she and her family wanted to shed light on mental illness, explaining that “it is important to distinguish between a loved one and an illness.”
Judd said the family was reluctant to share the cause of death before it was made public in any other way. She also revealed that it was she who found her mother, who was outspoken about her battle with depression after it happened.
“I am both saddened and traumatized by her discovery,” said Judd, who began the interview by thanking everyone for the support she and her family received after their grief.
The matriarch died the day before she and her daughter Winona, who formed the country music duo The Judds, were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Ashley Judd said her mother “can’t hold back” to be recognized by her peers.
“This is the level of catastrophe of what’s going on inside,” Judd said. “Because the barrier between the relationship in which she was being held could not penetrate her heart and the lie the disease told her was so convincing.”
The Judd sisters attended the ceremony and honored their mother.
CMT will broadcast a TV memorial to Judd on Sunday.
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