UPFRONT/THE A LIST
8 Surprising Things About Wynonna Judd
1. She grew up in poverty
Ashley [her actor sister] and I were raised on welfare. My mother [Naomi Judd] had a handheld counter, and when we’d go to the store, she’d put in the amount of a loaf of bread and then she would know what she had left. Sometimes we had no meals at all. We wore secondhand clothes from the Goodwill, and we cut our own hair. I had no idea how to handle success or even balance a checkbook.
2. Her first new album in 10 years, The Hard Truth, reexamines her past
I’m such a people pleaser that I felt like I was always meant to be there for others. Now, at 62, I feel like I’m supposed to do what God wants me to do, and sometimes that is to say no. That’s really hard sometimes.
3. She never knew her biological father
I get angry that I never met him, and that leads back to my mother. I try to understand what she was going through. How did she manage to not tell me who he was?
4. She longs to connect with her daughter
I became so consumed with worrying about Grace—where she was, if she was safe, if she was alive—that I lost myself. I would be packing to go on the road, and I would cry and think I couldn’t leave in case she needed me. I had to learn I can’t save her. Right now, I don’t know where she is.
“I’m definitely better at being a human because I’m working so hard on myself.”
—Wynonna Judd
5. She believes in talking things out
That’s what church is to me: having a conversation with someone and listening. I had dinner recently with Melissa Etheridge [with whom Judd toured this summer] and her partner. Melissa and I share a bond of grief over our children, since she lost her son Beckett to opioid addiction. That talk opened a channel of information that I can apply to my life.
6. She is raising her granddaughter
Kaliyah’s already a bareback rider at 4, so I keep her around horses. I want Kaliyah to have a strong sense of self in a world that’s always trying to brand you.
7. Her third marriage is the charm
[Drummer Cactus Moser] goes out on stage every night and gives a thousand percent, and I can rest in that. If I try to start something when I’m having a moment, he is always so fricking funny and stays in his own space. This man is my king.
8. She loves living in a small town in Tennessee
I can be myself and say, “I’m having a tough day,” and they’ll talk to me about their Aunt Ramona, or a farmer will tell me about his crops. Those simple, human conversations are such a gift. They keep me together. —As told to Alanna Nash
Country star Wynonna Judd won five Grammys with her mother, Naomi. She has released 10 solo albums.