Ashley Judd’s Memoir details childhood molestation and her dysfunctional family
Ashley Judd has written a somber new memoir based on her childhood and famous family called “All That Is Bitter & Sweet.”
Radar Online, which obtained a copy in advance of its Tuesday release date, reveals excerpts in which Judd counters the notion, made famous by her mother, Naomi, that the Judd family put the fun in dysfunctional.
After her father moved out, Ashley says, her mother began another relationship, with a man who was an abusive heroin addict.
“I was taught to believe that our lifestyle was normal and never to question it or complain, even when I was left alone for hours, sometimes days at a time, or when I was passed without warning to yet another relative,” Judd writes.
The problems for the actress didn’t just occur outside the house, as she details a sexual assault she suffered while getting pizza.
“An old man everyone knew beckoned me into a dark, empty corner of the business and offered me a quarter for the pinball machine at the pizza place if I’d sit on his lap,” Judd writes. “He opened his arms, I climbed up, and I was shocked when he suddenly cinched his arms around me, squeezing me and smothering my mouth with his, jabbing his tongue deep into my mouth.”
Her first chapter begins:
“My family of origin, the one into which I was born, was also brimming with love but was not a healthy family system,” Judd writes in that first chapter. “There was too much trauma, abandonment, addiction and shame. My mother, while she was transforming herself into the country legend Naomi Judd, created an origin myth for the Judds that did not match my reality. She and my sister have been quoted as saying that our family put the “fun” in dysfunction. I wondered: Who, exactly, was having all the fun? What was I missing?”
According to ET, Mom Naomi Judd and sister Wynona are standing behind Ashley. In the book, Ashley details her battle with depression as a result of growing up with molestation, loneliness and neglect. “I think it’s key for us to spend time figuring our own reality,” says Naomi. “Every unhappiness is tied to a story, and we have to go back and figure out our stories. And then it’s our stories that connect us.”
Wynonna adds, “The veil has been lifted. Secrets keep you sick and families will heal once you get real.” When asked if she is proud of her sister, Wynonna says, “Yes.”
