'Galling, irresponsible': Naomi Judd's devastated family blasts media for releasing her suicide note
WILLIAMSON COUNTY, TENNESSEE: The family of late Naomi Judd has been slamming the media outlets for what they call "galling" and "irresponsible" coverage of the troubled county singer’s tragic death. The Grammy-winning singer-songwriter, 76, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound on April 30 last year at her Tennessee ranch after undergoing years of emotional turmoil.
Multiple outlets recently released details of the late singing sensation's suicide note, among documents released by the Williamson County Sheriff's Office this week. In the heartbreaking note, which was found on a yellow post-it pad, Naomi banned her singing partner and daughter Wynonna Judd from attending her funeral and called her "mentally ill" in the devastating suicide note. "Do not let Wy come to my funeral. She’s mentally ill," she wrote, underlining the word "not.”
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Reflecting on the shocking releases, Naomi’s second daughter Ashley Judd shared a lengthy statement on her Instagram calling out media outlets for monetizing her family's "suffering and despair." The statement also urged legislators to keep police reports in Naomi’s suicide cases private. “Our family is deeply distressed by the galling, irresponsible publication of and ongoing requests for details and images of our beloved mother and wife’s death by suicide because of the trauma and damage it does to those who view such materials and the contagion risk they pose to those who are vulnerable to self-harm,” reads the statement signed by "The Judd & Strickland Families."
The statement continued by denouncing this "journalism" as nothing more than "the crudest monetization of a family’s suffering and despair, and a flagrant, cynical disregard for public welfare." "It is equally a deep violation of our right to a modicum of decency and privacy in death," the statement continued. The family called for the media to look to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention's (AFSP) guidelines on suicide coverage "to avoid re-traumatization of survivors of such a devastating tragedy."
Talking about the alleged suicide note, the statement said, "the note that was left came from the complex disease of mental illness and not from her mother’s heart." "We hope the public and elected officials now see, with us, the keen importance of strengthening and changing state privacy laws so that police reports in the event of death by suicide are not, in fact, public record. The consequence of the law as it presently serves only the craven gossip economy and has no public value or good," it concluded.