Editor’s note: This story discusses suicide. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
Larry Strickland, Naomi Judd‘s widower, confirmed the late singer once shot a gun at him after learning about his infidelity.
In the Lifetime docuseries “The Judd Family: Truth Be Told,” the 79-year-old – who was married to Judd for 33 years before her death in 2022 – briefly opened up about the incident.
In a voiceover from her 1993 memoir, “Love Can Build a Bridge,” Judd could be heard saying that she and Strickland were “wildly, madly, passionately in love,” despite her husband rarely being home. At the time, Judd detailed the moment she learned about her husband’s cheating after a woman continued to call their home and express her love for Strickland.
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A heartbroken Judd recalled tearing up photos of the pair and throwing Strickland’s clothes and belongings out.
At one point during the docuseries, Strickland rewatched a scene from the TV movie “Love Can Build a Bridge” in which Kathleen York, who played Naomi, shoots Bruce Greenwood, who played Strickland, after discovering his infidelities.
“Well, it really happened,” Strickland admitted. “That’s all I can say. That’s all I’m going to say. It happened.”
Judd and Strickland married in May 1989.
The Judds member died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound on April 30, 2022, one day before she was set to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
“I was really scared to death about her flying alone all the way from Vienna back to Nashville ’cause I knew how fragile she was,” Strickland said of the days leading up to her death during CMT’s “Naomi Judd: A River of Time” honoring Naomi shortly after her death.
Naomi’s daughter, actress Ashley Judd, appeared on “Good Morning America” at the time to discuss her mother’s mental health and her manner of death.
“She used a weapon… my mother used a firearm,” Ashley said during the appearance. “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.”
Ashley also shared details from Naomi’s final day.
“It was a mixed day,” the actress explained. “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.”
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Elsewhere in the documentary, Ashley and sister Wynonna Judd admitted that they had a complicated relationship with their late mother, who also dealt with her own trauma on her road to success.
The sisters opened up in the first three episodes about growing up with a young mom, the abuse they experienced from one of their mother’s exes when they were children, leaving Los Angeles behind to move home to Kentucky, and how Wynonna and Naomi found and dealt with superstardom in country music.
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“I’ve loved her more than I’ve loved myself, but Mother was both in love with me and terrified of me because I represented what she didn’t know and couldn’t control,” Wynonna said at the beginning of the docuseries.
Wynonna said she believes her mother’s suicide was partly to blame on “generational trauma” her mother experienced.
“One of the reasons I have decided that Mom left this world is because of trauma, generational trauma, family stuff that never got healed or fixed,” Wynonna said in the first episode of the show.
WYNONNA JUDD RECALLS LAST PERFORMANCE WITH MOM NAOMI: ‘SHE WAS VERY FRAGILE’
Ashley added that their mother lived with a “constellation of her sufferings” that spiraled into severe depression before her death.
Strickland also admitted in the docuseries he was “jealous as crap” of Naomi’s success early on in her career.
Naomi wrote in her memoir that after she found out that their song “Mama He’s Crazy” was No. 1, Strickland stood up and walked out the door.
“I was jealous as crap of her, you know,” he admitted, “so we just kind of fell apart a little bit.”
Fox News Digital’s Brie Stimson contributed to this post.
