“I was so devastated that I thought there was a part of me that’s missing. The glass is half empty. Learning about my birth father, I feel more like him than I do my mother in certain areas. And I think Mom was terrified of that half of me because she couldn’t control it,” Wynonna shared.
Wynonna Judd is sharing how the long-held secret surrounding her biological father impacted her relationship with her late mother, Naomi Judd.
In the emotional new Lifetime docuseries, The Judd Family: Truth Be Told, the country music icon, now 60, opened up about believing for three decades that Naomi’s first husband, Michael Ciminella, was her dad.
Naomi married Ciminella at just 17 while pregnant with Wynonna but waited until her daughter was 30 to reveal the truth — that her father was in fact, someone else.
“I knew that Michael didn’t like me and Mom didn’t really love him,” Wynonna confessed of Ciminella, who is actually sister Ashley Judd’s biological father. She then recounted the initial, painful explanation her mother gave: “Mom told me, ‘I was 16 and I was a virgin, I was home alone and [Wynonna’s biological father] came over and took advantage of me.'”
But that wasn’t the full story. Wynonna’s biological father was actually a man named Charlie Jordan, whom Naomi loved — but their relationship was complicated.
“There was all this pressure and everybody kinda freaked out, and he went off to join the Army,” Wynonna explained. “Look, I understand it, but I was really angry with her about it. I was so devastated that I thought there was a part of me that’s missing. The glass is half empty. Learning about my birth father, I feel more like him than I do my mother in certain areas. And I think Mom was terrified of that half of me because she couldn’t control it. She couldn’t bring it in and train it. That’s why Mom was very hard on me.”
Wynonna never had the chance to meet Jordan, who passed away in 2000 at the age of 56. It wasn’t until after his death, however, that she learned his trailer was filled with posters of The Judds.
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“My understanding is that Charlie knew about me and that he always felt like he couldn’t do anything about it,” she recalled. “I guess he didn’t feel he was worthy or whatever, like, ‘Wynonna’s got this life and I can’t just show up in it.'”
“And for a while, I wasn’t ready to go meet him. What if he’s a jerk? What if we don’t make a connection?,” the country crooner continued. “What if, what if, what if? Fear, fear, fear. But when I finally decided to, it was too late.”
Wynonna also shared that she chose not to attend Jordan’s funeral, explaining, “I didn’t go to his funeral because I felt it would be ‘too much’ for his family.”
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Elsewhere in the docuseries, Wynonna opened up about being sexually assaulted at the age of 12, and how it impacted her self-image.
“I was molested at 12, so my whole sexuality thing was really stamped out because I just, at 12, shut down,” Wynonna shared. “So, I carried the weight, both literally and figuratively.”
The assault changed the way she viewed herself and the way she dressed at the time.
“I mean, if you look at the clothes of The Judds, my clothes are up to here and here, like Amish. I’m Amish, basically. I’m wearing clothes to cover, not expose — to this day,” she Wynonna, using her hands to show that she covered herself up to her neck.
According to The Judds’ longtime producer and collaborator, Don Potter, Wynonna’s way of dressing came from a fear of “being lusted after,” adding that the singer didn’t want to be seen as “attractive.”
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But having a mother like Naomi, who was glamorous, admired, and followed home by men, was a difficult pill to swallow.
“That was always really hard for me because I saw it coming at me,” she said.
The Judd Family: Truth Be Told is streaming now on Lifetime.
The National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline — 800.656.HOPE (4673) — provides free, 24/7 support for those in need.
