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“Healing from grief is an inside job”: Why Ashley Judd found and met with her abuser

<p dir="ltr">Content warning: This article includes mentions of sexual assault, rape and child sexual abuse (CSA).</p> <p dir="ltr">Ashley Judd has opened up about the conversation she had with the man who raped her more than two decades ago.</p> <p dir="ltr">The <em>Double Jeopardy </em>star spoke about confronting the man who assaulted her in 1999 during an appearance on the podcast <em>Healing With David Kessler</em>, telling host David Kessler that they had a “restorative-justice conversation”.</p> <p dir="ltr">“To make a long story short, we ended up in rocking chairs sitting by a creek together,” Judd said. “And I said, ‘I’m very interested in hearing the story you’ve carried all these years’. And we had a restorative-justice conversation about that.</p> <p dir="ltr">"I wanted to share that story because there are many ways of healing from grief, and it's important to remind listeners that I didn't need anything from him and it was just gravy that he made his amends and expressed his deep remorse because healing from grief is an inside job."</p> <p dir="ltr">The 54-year-old added that she didn’t need closure from the man, whose identity is still unknown, or “his cooperation” or “for him to make amends” to continue healing, and that she was just “very interested in hearing” his side of the story.</p> <p dir="ltr">"Because I had the opportunity to do my trauma work, to do my grief work, to do my healing work, to have all these shifts in my own consciousness and to bond in these female coalition spaces with other survivors," Judd said. </p> <p dir="ltr">Recalling the incident, Judd described it as “crazy-making” and “unconscionable”.</p> <p dir="ltr">"I was very clear, my boundaries were intact. I was already an empowered, adult feminist woman," she recalled. </p> <p dir="ltr">"And that this could happen under these circumstances was unconscionable, unforeseen, and yet I have had a restorative-justice process with this person out of how replete my soul is today."</p> <p dir="ltr">Judd has publicly spoken about being a three-time rape survivor in the past and shared her story for the first time in her 2011 memoir, <em>All That Is Bitter &amp; Sweet</em>, and again in an <a href="https://www.mic.com/articles/113226/forget-your-team-your-online-violence-toward-girls-and-women-is-what-can-kiss-my-ass" target="_blank" rel="noopener">op-ed</a> she wrote for <em>Mic.com</em>’s ‘Pass the Mic’ series.</p> <p dir="ltr">"I am a survivor of sexual assault, rape and incest," she wrote at the time. </p> <p dir="ltr">"The summer of 1984 was tough for me. I experienced two rapes by an adult and systematic molestation from another adult, who also had another man in the room watching … This January, I read three different things that freshly triggered an additional, very specific memory from age 15 – an attempted oral rape by yet another adult man."</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong><em>If you or someone you know is impacted by sexual assault or childhood sexual abuse and need support, contact 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit their <a href="https://www.1800respect.org.au/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">website</a>, or contact <a href="https://blueknot.org.au/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">BlueKnot</a> on 1300 657 380.</em></strong></p> <p><em><span id="docs-internal-guid-9fcf9217-7fff-3f43-fab5-e53785cce460"></span></em></p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Image: Getty Images</em></p>

Mind

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"I am unmoored": Ashley Judd's sweet tribute to her late mother

<p dir="ltr">Ashley Judd has honoured her late mother in a heartwarming op-ed just a week after her death. </p> <p dir="ltr">Naomi Judd, one half of the duo The Judds, died at the age of 76 on April 30 following a battle with depression and mental illness.</p> <p dir="ltr">“My mama was an extraordinary parent under duress: She showed my sister and me the power of having a voice and using it, and there has been no greater lesson,” Ashley wrote in <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2022/05/06/ashley-judd-naomi-judd-mothers-day/96635010..." target="_blank" rel="noopener">USA Today</a>.</p> <p dir="ltr">“It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I was supposed to visit her on Sunday, to give her a box of old-fashioned candy, our family tradition.</p> <p dir="ltr">“We were supposed to have sweet delight in each others’ easy presence. Instead, I am unmoored. But my heart is not empty. It is replete with gratitude for what she left behind. Her nurture and tenderness, her music and memory.”</p> <p dir="ltr">Ashley and Wynonna teared up as they made an <a href="https://oversixty.com.au/entertainment/music/we-lost-our-beautiful-mother-ashley-judd-s-heartbreaking-speech" target="_blank" rel="noopener">emotional acceptance speech</a> at the Country Music Hall of Fame induction on the Monday following their mother’s passing.</p> <p dir="ltr">“I didn’t prepare anything tonight because I knew mum would probably talk the most,” Wynonna said.</p> <p dir="ltr">“I’m gonna make this fast, because my heart’s broken, and I feel so blessed. It’s a very strange dynamic, to be this broken and this blessed.”</p> <p dir="ltr">The sisters also quoted Psalm 23, a common hymn for funeral services.</p> <p dir="ltr">“My mama loved you so much and I’m sorry that she couldn’t hang on until today,” Ashley began.</p> <p dir="ltr">“Your esteem for her and your regard for her really penetrated her heart, and it was your affection for her that did keep her going in the last years, and please come see Pop,” she continued in reference to her stepfather and Naomi’s husband Larry Strickland.</p> <p dir="ltr">“While this is so much about the Judds as a duo, I want to take a moment to recognise my sister, a GOAT.”</p> <p dir="ltr">Wynonna then jumped in: “Though my heart is broken, I will continue to sing.”</p> <p dir="ltr">Naomi and daughter Wynonna, began singing together as a professional act in the early 1980s.</p> <p dir="ltr">They produced major hits loved by fans all over the world including "Mama He's Crazy" and "Love Can Build a Bridge”.</p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Image: Getty</em></p>

Relationships

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"We lost our beautiful mother": Ashley Judd's heartbreaking speech

<p dir="ltr">The daughters of country music legend Naomi Judd teared up at an awards ceremony on behalf of their mother, a day after she passed away.</p> <p dir="ltr">Naomi Judd, one half of the duo The Judds, died at the age of 76 on Sunday following a battle with depression and mental illness.</p> <p dir="ltr">On Monday, Ashley and Wynonna teared up as they made an emotional acceptance speech at the Country Music Hall of Fame induction following their mother’s passing.</p> <p dir="ltr">“I didn’t prepare anything tonight because I knew mum would probably talk the most,” Wynonna said.</p> <p dir="ltr">“I’m gonna make this fast, because my heart’s broken, and I feel so blessed. It’s a very strange dynamic, to be this broken and this blessed.”</p> <p dir="ltr">The sisters also quoted Psalm 23, a common hymn for funeral services.</p> <p><iframe title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XPaqAPywFcs" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p> <p dir="ltr">“My mama loved you so much and I’m sorry that she couldn’t hang on until today,” Ashley began.</p> <p dir="ltr">“Your esteem for her and your regard for her really penetrated her heart, and it was your affection for her that did keep her going in the last years, and please come see Pop,” she continued in reference to her stepfather and Naomi’s husband Larry Strickland.</p> <p dir="ltr">“While this is so much about the Judds as a duo, I want to take a moment to recognise my sister, a GOAT.”</p> <p dir="ltr">Wynonna then jumped in: “Though my heart is broken, I will continue to sing.”</p> <p dir="ltr">Naomi and daughter Wynonna, began singing together as a professional act in the early 1980s.</p> <p dir="ltr">They produced major hits loved by fans all over the world including "Mama He's Crazy" and "Love Can Build a Bridge”.</p> <p dir="ltr">The sisters announced their mother’s death in a statement on Sunday.</p> <p dir="ltr">"Today we sisters experienced a tragedy. We lost our beautiful mother to the disease of mental illness," the statement read.</p> <p dir="ltr">"We are shattered. We are navigating profound grief and know that, as we loved her, she was loved by her public. We are in unknown territory."</p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Image: Getty</em></p>

Music

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Ashley Judd opens up about traumatic incident in Congo jungle

<p>Ashley Judd has gone into detail about her horrific experience after shattering her leg in the Congolese jungle, revealing it was locals who saved her.</p> <p>The beloved actress, who was in the Congo to track endangered Bonobos, explained that she sustained “massive catastrophic injuries” after tripping over a fallen tree. “What was next was an incredibly harrowing 55 hours,” she said. She then told fans how she lay on the forest floor in agony, with the belief that her “internal bleeding would have likely killed her".</p> <p>However, she says she owes all her thanks to a man named Dieumerci, who “stretched out his leg and put it under my grossly misshapen left leg to try to keep it still. It was broken in four places and had nerve damage. Dieumerci (“Thanks be to God”) remained seated, without fidgeting or flinching, for five hours on the rainforest floor.”</p> <p>The actress then described another local man named Papa Jean who spent five hours searching for her, gave her a stick to bite on, then went on to readjust the shattered pieces of her leg.</p> <p>“It took five hours, but eventually he found me, wretched and wild on the ground, and calmly assessed my broken leg. He told me what he had to do,” she wrote.</p> <p>“I bit a stick. I held onto Maud. And Papa Jean, with certainty, began to manipulate and adjust my broken bones back into something like a position I could be transported in, while I screamed and writhed. How he did that so methodically while I was like an animal is beyond me. He saved me.”</p> <blockquote style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/CLW2-QohZps/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="13"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"></div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"></div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"></div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"></div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"></div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" rel="noopener" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CLW2-QohZps/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank">A post shared by Ashley Judd (@ashley_judd)</a></p> </div> </blockquote> <p>She then went on to say a group of men improvised a hammock and spent three hours carrying Judd through the forest to find transportation.</p> <p>The actress’ story does not end there though, as she told fans that her dear friend, a man named Maradona, volunteered to ride with her for six hours on a motorbike and kept her from falling off.</p> <p>She wrote: “Didier drove the motorbike. I sat facing backwards, his back my backrest. When I would begin to slump, to pass out, he would call to me to re-set my position to lean on him. Maradona rode on the very back of the motorbike, I faced him.</p> <p>“He held my broken leg under the heel and I held the shattered top part together with my two hands. Together we did this for six hours on an irregular, rutted and pocked dirt road that has gullies for rain run off during the rainy season. Maradona was the only person to come forward to volunteer for this task.”</p> <p>Judd wrote that she made the decision to come forward about the accident as a way to spread the word about “what it means to be Congolese in extreme poverty with no access to health care, any medication for pain, any type of service, or choices.”</p> <p>“The difference between a Congolese person and me is disaster insurance that allowed me, 55 hours after my accident, to get to an operating table in South Africa,” she says, adding that villages in<span> </span><a rel="noopener" href="https://deadline.com/tag/congo/" target="_blank">Congo</a><span> </span>lack not only electricity but “a simple pill to kill the pain when you’ve shattered a leg in four places and have nerve damage.”</p> <p>The actress now lies in her hospital bed in South Africa, saying: “I wake up weeping in gratitude, deeply moved by each person who contributed something life giving and spirit salving during my gruelling 55 hour odyssey.”</p>

Caring