(VOVWORLD) - Naomi Judd, matriarch of the country music duo the Judds, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound a day before being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, her family said on Thursday.
 Country music star Naomi Judd listens as her daughter Ashley (not shown) reads off the Tennessee vote totals during the roll call vote during the second session of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, September 5, 2012. (REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst) |
Judd, 76, suffered from mental illness, a disease that tells victims "you are not loved, you are not enough, that you are not worthy," her daughter Ashley Judd said in an interview aired on ABC's "Good Morning America."
"Our mother couldn't hang on until she was inducted into the Hall of Fame by her peers. That was the level of disaster that was going on inside of her," Ashley Judd, a 54-year-old actor, said.
"She used a weapon. Mother used a firearm," she said of the death, which was announced on April 30.
The family's revelation followed news that the rate of US gun deaths surged during the pandemic to the highest point since 1994.
Gun suicides - the leading cause of gun deaths - totaled more than 24,000 in 2020, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report published on Tuesday.