Naomi Judd and Larry Strickland were married for more than 30 years, weathering many storms throughout their relationship — including allegations of infidelity.
In the new Lifetime docuseries The Judd Family: Truth Be Told, Strickland opened up about his marriage to Judd, who died by suicide in April 2022 at age 76. “I mean, it was almost a love at first sight kind of thing,” Strickland recalled in episode 2 of the series, which premiered Saturday, May 10.
While Judd and Strickland tied the knot in 1989, their romance wasn’t always sunshine and roses. As she recounted in her memoir, she once received a phone call from a woman who said she missed Strickland. In response, Judd cut up all her pictures of Strickland and threw his belongings in the yard in trash bags.
“Oh, it was hell. I heard everything,” Naomi’s daughter Ashley Judd recalled in the docuseries. “I heard Mom’s phone calls to him on the road, I heard them fight, I heard them not fight, I heard it all.”
In 1995, Naomi produced a TV movie about her life called Naomi & Wynonna: Love Can Build a Bridge, which included a scene where Naomi shot at Strickland after accusing him of infidelity.
“Well, it really happened, that’s all I can say,” Strickland said in episode 2 after watching the clip. “That’s all I wanna say. It happened.”
Despite their ups and downs, Strickland and Naomi stayed together until her death. While her suicide came as a shock to fans, Strickland said she was struggling behind the scenes near the end of her life.
“There was a couch, and in the latter days, she layed on that couch. She just couldn’t get off of that couch,” he recalled. “Toward the end, the last year of her life, it was just about every night she would be in a panic mode.”
Naomi’s eldest daughter, Wynonna Judd, also mentioned the couch, admitting that she didn’t always know how much her mother was suffering.
“One of the things I didn’t know is how much she struggled on the couch,” the singer, 60, recalled. “That stupid couch, that’s where she spent a lot of time, and I did not know that. I was so caught up in my own success and trying to keep it going and be that person. 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.”
Naomi’s brother Mark Judd echoed that sentiment in the docuseries, saying, “I think there was something missing from her childhood and not really getting a whole lot of support from her parents.” He added that performing became an outlet for her because it helped her “boost her self-esteem.”
Parts 3 and 4 of The Judd Family: Truth Be Told air on Lifetime Sunday, May 11, at 8 p.m. ET.
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