Wynonna Judd is reflecting on the painful lesson she learned while trying to help her daughter Grace Kelley through her years-long battle with methamphetamine addiction.
Kelley, 30, has struggled with drug addiction and faced a string of related legal troubles for more than a decade. She is currently serving a 15-month sentence at Rockingham County Jail in Harrisonburg, Virginia, after pleading guilty in June to a felony charge of driving with a suspended or revoked license.
During an interview with Fox News Digital, Judd, 62, who recently released her deeply personal album “The Hard Truth,” candidly opened up about coming to the realization that some of her attempts to help Kelley only exacerbated her daughter’s problems.
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“I really lost myself with Grace and I enabled her, which comes down to basically giving her money for drugs,” Judd admitted. “And here I thought I was buying her a car. And those things really bit me in the butt.”
“And I’m still feeling, you know, some guilt and shame about that,” she added.
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The country star also shared what she would tell other parents struggling to help their children without enabling them.
“I would say work on yourself,” Judd said. “That was one of the things that I was told. And working on myself, getting the peace, letting her see that she’s attracted to that. Maybe she wants to get better herself. So let the light shine.”
“Let your light shine through the cracks, that’s how they see the light,” she continued. “And hopefully she’ll want the same thing that I have. Find someone whose recovery you love so much that you want to be like them and go and do it.”
“The Hard Truth” is Judd’s first solo studio album in more than a decade as well as her first time serving as a primary songwriter. The album explores heartbreak, healing, faith and survival while shining a light on some of the most painful chapters of Judd’s life, including her complicated relationship with her late mother Naomi Judd and Kelley’s struggles.
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While speaking with Fox News Digital, Judd opened up about the hardest truth that she had to face while making the album.
“That there might be a chance that my daughter doesn’t get clean, that she doesn’t find the healing that she so desperately needs,” Judd admitted. “As a mother, I’m devastated by her story, and I just had to let go.”
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The six-time Grammy Award winner also reflected on her current estrangement from Kelley, with whom she said she has not spoken for a year.
“After all these years, the money ran out, and she did, too,” Judd said. “And I just have to make peace with the fact that I did everything I could do. Including enabling, and I’ve had to deal with that. And just the pain of losing her to meth and realizing that there’s absolutely nothing I can do to save her anymore.”
Judd explained that her last conversation with Kelley was difficult since she had stood by her decision to stop enabling her daughter.
“Things were tense because I wasn’t giving her money anymore and helping her to go back to rehab again and again and again, and again,” Judd said. “And I just had to say, ‘Sweetheart, you know, you’re 30 years old. It’s time to stop blaming your mom. And I want you to get the help that you need, and you’re gonna have to do it yourself.'”
Judd told Fox News Digital that while she still has hope for a reconciliation with Kelley, there is one condition that would have to come first before they could begin rebuilding their relationship.
“Sobriety,” she said. “You are not supposed to make any major decisions in your life, including relationships for a year after you get clean and sober. And I would ask her to go to rehab again, because I know that that’s what worked for me.”
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In 2006, Judd checked herself into the Shades of Hope Center of Headling in Buffalo Gap, Texas, where she underwent a 42-day treatment program to address her struggles with food addiction. She told Fox News Digital that her own time in treatment shaped the way she views recovery and the example she wants to set for Kelley.
“I’m gonna express that to her, of course, and you’re not supposed to really go there. You want the person to want it themselves,” Judd said. “But it would take some time because we’ve been apart a lot. She’s been homeless and struggling for years and in and out of prison.”
“And I have a song on the record called ‘Drive,’ which talks about me driving down to see her in prison back when she was incarcerated,” she continued. “And I’m just gonna look forward to that day. I still have hope she’s alive. There is still hope.”
Judd shares Kelley and son Elijah, 31, with her first husband Arch Kelley III, to whom she was married from 1996 to 1998.
During a recent appearance on the “Shawn Ryan Show,” Judd reflected on how her demanding career may have affected Grace differently than it did Elijah.
“Grace was very jealous of my career because it took me away from her enough to where she was not satisfied,” she said. “I think because she’s the second born, I think it was important to her that I even spend more time with her because I had that with Elijah for a minute.”
“He was more at peace about it,” Judd continued. “She was the one that wanted to sleep with me, wanted my attention 24/7.”
“So that was painful. That was hard. I was really hard on myself about that,” she admitted.
Judd also spoke candidly about the toll of her daughter’s addiction, describing herself as “a mom in waiting.”
“I’m waiting for my daughter to return from a nightmarish addiction to meth,” she said. “And it has been quite a journey.”
“And unfortunately, she’s been incarcerated since … on and off since she was 17,” she continued.
“I’ve made all the jokes about, ‘I have one on parole. I have one on patrol,'” Judd added. “My son is a deputy. I’ve done all that, and now it’s time to just tell my story as a mom who’s constantly in this place between hell and hallelujah.”
Judd said setting boundaries with Kelley became one of the hardest decisions of her life, recalling how she struggled with refusing to help her daughter even when she reached out in desperation.
“I had to let go, and that means no more enabling,” she explained. “And it about killed me because when your kid calls and says, ‘I’m hungry,’ what do you do?”
The “No One Else on Earth” singer said Kelley’s repeated incarceration and the dangers surrounding drug use made her realize that enabling her daughter could have life-or-death consequences.
“She’s been in and out of prison and jail for so long that that’s her way of walking through the addiction part in terms of what it costs her,” Judd said. “We’re also now dealing with fentanyl. So, there’s that.”
“I realized, ‘Oh my God, it’s possible that I could be part of the reason she dies. I’m loving her to death. Literally,'” she shared.
Judd said she believes that Kelley still carries resentment over the time her career took away from their relationship, as well as her decision to step in and raise her granddaughter Kaliyah.
“Grace is really mad at me right now,” she said. “Because I had a career, and I was busy, and she didn’t have enough of me in the beginning. I did the best I could. I’ve made a lot of mistakes, and she’s really mad at me for stepping in with her child.”
“Kaliyah has Type 1 diabetes,” Judd continued. “There’s no way she could have taken care of her. That’s one thing. It’s a 24/7 situation. I stepped in, and I took over, and she’s mad at me.”
“I understand that that’s her journey,” she added. “It’s not mine. My journey is to raise this baby to be the healthiest and break the cycle.”
Judd and her third husband, musician Cactus Moser, who she married in 2012, have been the primary caregivers for Kaliyah, 4, since her infancy and legally adopted her amid Kelley’s addiction struggles and legal woes. The singer was previously married to former bodyguard D.R. Roach from 2003 until 2007.
Moser and Judd are currently raising Kaliyah on their 500-acre farm in Tennessee.
When asked by Fox News Digital about how she balances protecting Kaliyah while leaving the door open for Kelley to be part of her life someday, Judd said her focus remains on giving her granddaughter a grounded childhood.
“I haven’t answered that yet,” she said. “I think I’m still in the part where I’m so hell-bent on keeping her out of the iPad and the phone and TV. We live on a farm, and she mucks stalls and does chores and she’s a cowgirl. So I’m so centered on that. I haven’t really given that a lot of thought and if and when that happens I’ll answer your question.”
Judd also shared a glimpse into her day-to-day life on the farm with Kaliyah and Moser.
“Getting away with as much as possible without having to do anything, going on a side by side, ride down to the lake, taking her fishing, we do that a lot,” she told Fox News Digital. “And being out in the woods, just being outside is just so heavenly.”
Judd described their farm as a “peace place,” noting that her life at home is much simpler than her life onstage.
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“I have 40 animals,” she said. “So I have chores as well. And I spend my time cooking. That’s what I do.”
“I’m known in our family as the cook, and I’m known as Nonie,” Judd continued. “When I don’t have on my lashes, I am known as Nonie.”
Meanwhile, Kelley is believed to have welcomed a second child while incarcerated. During her appearance on the “Shawn Ryan Show,” Judd said she learned about the baby through social media and knows little about the child’s circumstances.
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“I just found out on TikTok that she’s had another baby in prison, and I don’t even know if it’s a boy or a girl,” Judd said.
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“There are these things that people assume that I can do, but I’m just a mom in this situation,” she continued. “Sure, I can get a good seat in a restaurant. I can stand on the mountaintops and sing from my toenails, but this one thing I have no control.”
“It’s just one of those nightmarish things that you hope you wake up from,” Judd added.
