Ashley Judd has been open before about the grief she’s experienced after unexpectedly losing her mother, beloved country superstar Naomi Judd, earlier this year. Naomi, who sang in the iconic mother-daughter duo The Judds with her other daughter Wynonna Judd, died on April 30. She was 76.
Ashley made an appearance on Zoom with Dr. Jonathan Flint as part of a series hosted by the Friends of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA. That’s where she described the “freak accident,” a fractured leg, which she said healed quickly and explained that klutziness often goes hand-in-hand with grief. She said during the conversation, per The Hollywood Reporter: “It was what it was. Clumsiness is associated with grief, and there were other people in our family, after mom died, who fell down stairs and had accidents, and that’s just what mine happened to look like. It really allowed me to grieve. It really allowed me to stop what I was working on at that moment and to grieve.”
“With gratitude to the remarkable Ashley Judd for her vulnerability & wisdom on trauma & resilience,” reads a tweet from the emel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA. “We are also very grateful for Dr. Jonathan Flint’s participation in the discussion, a highly regarded scientist and expert in genetic neuroscience.”
Ashley retweeted in response: “Such a pleasure to be in community with the great behavior geneticist Dr Flint for a meaningful conversation. Thank you for having me.”