Naomi Judd didn’t want her daughter and musical partner Wynonna Judd at her funeral, according to a note she left before taking her life last year.
“Do not let Wy come to my funeral. She’s mentally ill,” the country star wrote on a yellow Post-It note.
Naomi's chilling final wish was revealed in a photo taken by the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office in Franklin, Tennessee by investigators looking into her death and was published this week by RadarOnline.
“The note that was left came from the complex disease of mental illness and not from her mother’s heart," the family said in a statement Thursday.
In early December, they filed a notice to voluntarily dismiss a lawsuit seeking to prevent the Sheriff's Office from releasing documents and photos from the death scene.
The family's statement called the publication of the material "galling" and "irresponsible" and "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."
Both Wynonna and Ashley Judd did media interviews following their mother's death.
Last September, Wynonna admitted she feels “incredibly angry” about her mother’s suicide. “Sometimes, I laugh,” she told CBS News Sunday Morning. “And sometimes, I say, 'I really miss you. Why aren't you here so we can argue?’
“When you lose your mother, a lot of that crap goes away, ‘cause it doesn't matter anymore. It just doesn’t.”
Wynonna said in her grieving, she has also felt some guilt. “I did not know that she was at the place she was at when she ended it, because she had had episodes before and she got better,” she explained. “And that's what I live in, is like, 'Was there anything I should have looked for or should I have known?' I didn’t."
Naomi died on April 30 of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. She was 76. She and Wynonna had announced only days earlier that they were reuniting as The Judds for a final U.S. tour that was scheduled to begin in September. They returned to the stage at the CMT Awards on April 11 and were set to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame on May 1.
In her will, dated Nov. 20, 2017, Naomi named Strickland as the executor of her estate.
Wynonna, who reportedly attended her mother’s funeral, is on The Judds: The Final Tour until Feb. 25.
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