Naomi Judd's widower, Larry Strickland, is opening up about their relationship, sharing that the country music star once shot a gun at him after learning that he had been unfaithful.
The revelation came in the docuseries "The Judd Family: Truth Be Told," which aired over the weekend.
The late country singer, in a voiceover of her 1993 memoir "Love Can Build a Bridge," explained that she and Strickland were "wildly, madly, passionately in love," but her husband was never home, according to People.
In the voiceover, Judd recalled a phone call to their Nashville, Tennessee, home from a woman in the Northeast during the 1980s saying how "she loved and missed" Strickland. Later, when he returned home, Judd recounted how she broke down, ripping up their photographs and tossing his things into a garbage bag outside in the yard.
In the new docuseries, Strickland revisited a scene from the "Love Can Build a Bridge" TV movie in which Kathleen York, portraying Naomi, shoots Bruce Greenwood, who plays Strickland, after discovering his infidelity.
"Well, it really happened," he said. "That's all I can say. That's all I'm gonna say. It happened."
Judd and Strickland first met in 1979, eventually marrying in May 1989. Their marriage lasted for 33 years, until Judd died by suicide at age 76 in April 2022. In a police report cited by the Daily Mail in 2023, an officer wrote that Strickland was traveling in Europe at the time of her death.
"For the past 13 years or more, I was with her 24/7," Strickland told People in a 2022 interview while speaking about caring for his wife. "I never left the house without Naomi knowing where I was going and when I would be back. As far as taking care of myself, I'm not sure that fits my situation. When you have a mate that has a mental illness, you walk that path with them."
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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