A Complete Guide to the Judd Family: Naomi, Wynonna, Ashley and More

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The Judd family is more than just country music royalty.

Naomi Judd welcomed daughter Wynonna Judd with ex-boyfriend Charles Jordan in May 1964. After splitting from Jordan, Naomi wed Michael Ciminella. The couple expanded their family with daughter Ashley Judd in April 1968. Naomi and Ciminella divorced in 1972.

While navigating life as a single mother, Naomi and Wynonna formed a music duo, The Judds, in the ’80s. The pair found success as a group and as solo artists.

The Judd family has grown over the years as Wynonna and Ashley have gotten married. Wynonna is the only one who has welcomed children.

In 2022, tragedy struck the Judd family when Naomi died by suicide. She was 76 years old.

“Today we sisters experienced a tragedy. We lost our beautiful mother to the disease of mental illness,” Wynonna and Ashley shared in a joint statement at the time. “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.”

Keep scrolling for a complete guide on the Judd family:

Naomi Judd

Naomi was born in January 1946 to parents Pauline Ruth and Charles Glen Judd. She had a younger brother named Brian, who died of leukemia in 1965 at age 17.

At 18 years old, Naomi became a mother after welcoming Wynonna. When her relationship with Wynonna’s birth father came to an end, she tied the knot with Ciminella. After giving birth to Ashley, Naomi and her family relocated from Kentucky to Los Angeles. Following her divorce from Ciminella in 1972, Naomi and her daughters returned to Kentucky.

Naomi and Wynonna formed The Judds in 1983. As a musical duo, they won five Grammy Awards and nine Country Music Association Awards. The mother-daughter duo disbanded The Judds in 1991 after Naomi was diagnosed with hepatitis C.

In 1989, Naomi married her second husband, Larry Strickland, with whom she remained until her final days.

Throughout her life, Naomi struggled with her mental health as she battled depression and anxiety. Naomi died by suicide in April 2022, one day before she and Wynonna were going to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Wynonna Judd

Growing up, Wynonna did not know that Jordan was her birth father. Her mom told her later in life, and she never met him before he died in 2000.

Wynonna found success alongside her mom in The Judds. After they disbanded, Wynonna pursued a solo career and released eight studio albums. She earned three No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. Wynonna was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame as a member of The Judds.

The singer tied the knot with first husband, Arch Kelley III, in 1996. The pair share son Elijah and daughter Grace. Wynonna and Kelley divorced in 1998. Years after her split from Kelley, Wynonna married her former bodyguard D. R. Roach in 2003. In 2007, Wynonna filed for divorce after four years of marriage. In 2012, Wynonna married drummer Cactus Moser.

Arch Kelley III

While Kelley was married to a country superstar, he has remained out of the spotlight. Kelley is a businessman whom Wynonna met in Nashville. The twosome welcomed Elijah in December 1994. Wynonna and Kelley tied the knot in January 1996 and welcomed Grace five months later. Wynonna and Kelley divorced in 1998.

D. R. Roach

Roach served as Wynonna’s bodyguard before becoming her husband in 2003. In 2007, Roach was arrested for sexual assault of a child under the age of 13. The identity of the victim has not been publicly revealed. Wynonna filed for divorce days after the news broke.

“I am obviously devastated. Our family will pull together, begin the healing process and hopefully — by the Grace of God — become stronger,” Wynonna said in a statement on her website at the time. “We will move forward with our faith, family and our friends to find resolution to this difficult situation.”

Roach pleaded guilty to attempted aggravated sexual battery. He is currently registered as a sex offender in Tennessee.

Nearly two decades after Roach’s arrest, Wynonna’s daughter, Grace, claimed that she was abused by her stepfather as a child.

“When they found out in counseling what he had done to me, they’re like, ‘Wait a minute. We’re going to report this to law enforcement,’” Grace claimed to The Daily Progress in July 2025. “When he was arrested and it came out in the news, that’s when she divorced him.”

Grace alleged that her mother covered up the abuse.

“So is my mom rich? Yeah, she’s so rich that she was able to sweep me under the rug and abuse me and then cover it all up,” Grace claimed. “I don’t want to talk bad about my mom, but we’ll just say she’s a good performer. She was never a mother.”

Us reached out to Wynonna’s rep and Roach’s last known contact for comment but did not hear back.

Cactus Moser

Moser was the drummer for the country band Highway 101. He and Wynonna initially met in 1989 while on tour together, but their connection didn’t blossom into a romance until a decade later. In 2009, the couple started dating and got engaged two years later. Moser and Wynonna tied the knot in June 2012. They remain together.

Elijah Judd

Elijah was born in December 1994 to Wynonna and Kelley before they wed. He was named after Wynonna’s great-great-great-grandfather. In December 2017, Elijah proposed to girlfriend Hailey Williams. They tied the knot in October 2020.

Grace Kelley

Wynonna and Arch welcomed Grace in June 1996. Wynonna previously shared that she almost died giving birth to her daughter.

“Let’s just say, I don’t want to get back into the delivery room,” Wynonna said in a 1997 interview with the Tampa Bay Times. “But I came the closest I’ve come to dying. It’ll be a year in June, and I’m just starting to feel human again.”

Over the years, Grace has had her fair share of personal struggles. Grace has been arrested multiple times. Her first run-in with the law occurred in December 2015 when she was arrested and charged with promotion of meth manufacture, per Radar Online. Grace pled guilty to a lesser charge: possession of meth. While out on probation, Grace was arrested again in November 2016 for being a “fugitive from justice.” Her probation was revoked.

In 2024, Grace was arrested in Albemarle County, Virginia, after allegedly stealing a Charlottesville church’s van, per The Daily Progress. She faced seven charges, including three counts of felony grand larceny, driving without a license, destruction of property with intent, failure to use headlights and setting in motion a vehicle with intent to commit a crime. The Daily Progress reported Grace accepted a plea deal that lessened her charges to possession of drug paraphernalia, drugged driving and petty larceny. She spent six weeks in jail.

Amid Grace’s legal trouble, Wynonna has become the guardian of Grace’s daughter, Kaliyah.

Ashley Judd

Like her mother and sister, Ashley pursued a career in the arts, but her focus was on acting instead of music. She is best known for her roles in Double Jeopardy, Kiss the Girls, Heat, High Crimes, A Time to Kill, Divergent, Olympus Has Fallen and more.

Ashley is also an activist for countless issues, including gender equality, abortion and the rights of women and girls. She was one of the many women to accuse Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment. Weinstein has denied the allegations.

In 2001, Ashley tied the knot with racecar driver Dario Franchitti. The pair split in 2013.

Dario Franchitti

Franchitti met Ashley at Jason Priestley’s wedding to ex-wife Ashlee Petersen in 1999. Ashley and the IndyCar driver hit it off and got engaged later that year. They tied the knot in 2001 in Scotland. While Franchitti and Ashley divorced in 2013, the exes remain amicable.

Following his split from Ashley, Franchitti moved on with wife Eleanor Robb, whom he wed in 2015. The couple share two children.

In his career, Franchitti won the IndyCar Series Drivers’ Championship in 2007, 2009, 2010 and 2011. He also won the Indianapolis 500 in 2007, 2010 and 2012. Franchitti had to retire from the sport in 2013 after being injured in a serious crash.

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).

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