Wynonna Judd: ‘Broken and Blessed’ with Grief

Wynonna Judd is a country music superstar who got her first record contract at 18 singing with her mother Naomi. In this moving conversation, she talks with Anderson Cooper about her mother's suicide in 2022, grieving the father she never knew about until she was 30, and her estrangement from her daughter. For more of “All There Is with Anderson Cooper” visit cnn.com/allthereis. Host: Anderson Cooper Showrunner: Haley Thomas Producers: Emily Williams and Kyra Dahring Video Editor: Eric Zembrzuski Technical Director: Dan Dzula Bookers: Kerry Rubin and Kari Pricher Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:31Anderson Cooper?

  Welcome to All There Is. Wherever you are in the world and in your life, I'm glad you're here. I sat down last Wednesday with Wynonna Judd. From a distance, she's always seemed kind of larger than life to me. But sitting across from her and talking with her about the losses in her life and the grief work she's been doing, I was really moved by her and by her honesty. Wynonna is 62 and got her first record contract with her mom Naomi Judd when she was 18. She's been through a lot in those years. A lot of highs and lows. And she's not only talking about them now, she's singing about them as well. Her new album, The Hard Truth, is deeply personal. She co-wrote most of the songs, working alongside her husband, Cactus Moser. And you'll hear a bunch of them that we'll also talk about because they tell a story of loss that's beyond words.

• 1:16Anderson Cooper?

  Wynonna was born in Ashland, Kentucky, in the Appalachian foothills. She grew up poor with her mom and sister Ashley, who was on the podcast several seasons ago. Naomi Judd died by suicide in April 2022, and will be speaking about that in this interview. Wynonna says the depth of her mom's mental health issues was kept secret over the years. There were a lot of secrets in Wynonna's life. The man she thought was her father was actually her stepfather. Wynonna wasn't told the truth until she was 30. And she says everyone else around her always knew, and they just lied to her. When she decided to try to meet her biological dad, he'd already died. Wynonna is also going through a lot with her estranged daughter Grace, who's battled drug addiction throughout her life

• 2:00Anderson Cooper?

  and is currently incarcerated. Wynonna and Cactus are raising Grace's four-year-old daughter, Kalia. Here's my conversation with Wynonna Judd.

• 2:10Anderson Cooper?

  Thank you so much for doing this. You won't remember this, but we met once before. It was an album release party, I think, in New York, and watched you play, and you're incredible. And then afterward, you were like upstairs on like a dais. And I approached you, and I was so nervous. And what I remember you saying to me, you said, "Anderson, some days, you just gotta put on your armor. You gotta put on your armor."

• 2:35Speaker 02

  Armor. I like your accent. What'd you do?

• 2:37Anderson Cooper?

  I don't know where that accent came from. But it's not really yours. But it's the only southern member. My dad's from Mississippi. But that idea weirdly has stuck in my head.

• 2:47Speaker 02

  Interesting.

• 2:47Anderson Cooper?

  And I cannot tell you how many times, like, I'm brushing my teeth in the morning, look in the mirror and be like, "Anderson, you just gotta put on your armor." I feel like I have a relationship with you through that.

• 3:00Speaker 02

  We're connected.

• 3:01Anderson Cooper?

  Is that a line you use?

• 3:02Speaker 02

  No. I don't know where the heck that came from.

• 3:05Anderson Cooper?

  It's such a good... I was like, "Oh, my God, you're so right." Yes.

• 3:08Speaker 02

  You're right.

• 3:09Anderson Cooper?

  But I think it's also good to take off your armor.

• 3:11Speaker 02

  I agree.

• 3:12Anderson Cooper?

  And so that's what I'm trying to do on this podcast.

• 3:14Speaker 02

  That's what we're doing today.

• 3:14Anderson Cooper?

  Yeah. Is grief something you have felt, been aware of feeling for a long time?

• 3:20Speaker 02

  Since I can remember. Since I can remember. I think I've always felt grief because, on some level, Anderson, I just knew that I was born into such a chaos. I just knew on some level that I was sort of the chosen one with one set of grandparents and then in the way on the other side, kind of thing. So I think there was a sadness, a grieving, if you will. And I knew how distracted and overwhelmed my mother was because she was so young, 17 when she got pregnant, coming out of high school.

• 3:55Anderson Cooper?

  Wow.

• 3:56Speaker 02

  So back in 1963, women didn't get pregnant without having a partner. And I knew that mom was overwhelmed.

• 4:05Anderson Cooper?

  How did you figure out a way through?

• 4:07Speaker 02

  I recently read a book called The Highly Sensitive Person. And it changed my, my thinking because I did everything I could to not cry or not upset anybody. And I became such a codependent early in my life because I knew how to alter my state so that I wouldn't upset the system. I couldn't really be myself. I couldn't be the highly sensitive kid I was.

• 4:33Anderson Cooper?

  Did you cry as a kid?

• 4:34Speaker 02

  Oh, a lot. I still do. I cry a lot.

• 4:37Anderson Cooper?

  You do?

• 4:38Speaker 02

  I do, because I'm grieving still.

• 4:41Anderson Cooper?

  I buried it so early on. I just wanted to build a life raft, and I just tried to push forward.

• 4:48Speaker 02

  I did too.

• 4:50Anderson Cooper?

  Do you still feel like you're doing that? Or do you feel like you're turning to that grief?

• 4:55Speaker 02

  I'm turning to it, and I use it on stage as well as offstage. And I have a partner. Cactus is my companion in a way that I've never had that experience with a man before, who was so loving and even walking up here, he prayed over me. So I have such a support team, people who say, "Lean into it. Let it come."

• 5:19Anderson Cooper?

  I've been trying to develop a companionship with grief, like a relationship with it, rather than running from it. And like, I feel the little boy that I was back then, when I came up with all these strategies and plans.

• 5:35Speaker 02

  That makes me want to cry. That's so sweet.

• 5:37Anderson Cooper?

  Do you feel the little girl you were?

• 5:39Speaker 02

  I do. I do. I did a lot of work around this. I did a lot of work. I did 42 days in sort of a treatment program. I wrote letters to myself, and they talked about protecting the little girl and letting her be and seen and heard, which I wasn't as a child. So I've worked really hard at getting that companionship, like you're talking about.

• 6:03Anderson Cooper?

  Was that helpful?

• 6:05Speaker 02

  It changed my life. It changed my life.

• 6:09Anderson Cooper?

  I'm almost embarrassed to talk about it because it seems so like cliche. I'm like, "Oh, okay, the little child within you." But like, it's been incredible.

• 6:16Speaker 02

  Nobody was around to protect me, in a sense. Everybody was distracted. So I had to take care of myself. And then when Ashley was born, I knew on some level I was responsible for her.

• 6:28Anderson Cooper?

  You're also in this situation as a kid where your mom, as you've said, wants to be famous and hears your voice as a way to, to propel everybody out.

• 6:42Speaker 02

  It was a way out of the holler. She knew.

• 6:45Anderson Cooper?

  When did you know that, that she had that idea in mind?

• 6:49Speaker 02

  I was probably 12. I would say somewhere between eight and 10, mom started to hone in on the gift and really set me up for success. She raised a champion in Ashley and in me to go for it. And I think she was living through that with me and started singing with me. I would learn songs. Joni Mitchell, I was doing Bonnie Raitt and Linda Ronstadt. I wanted to be them. And she started to harmonize. And it was so otherworldly that people started to notice. And I remember getting that high, knowing that we had some kind of power over people

• 7:30Speaker 02

  because when we would sing, this harmony was just like an angelic thing. It was just marvelous. And people started to notice. And so I think somewhere around 12, she knew.

• 7:41Anderson Cooper?

  There's something incredible about having this gift and also having somebody who sees it and encourages it. There's also something that's a lot of pressure when you're 12 years old. How did you start to feel about it over the years as a kid?

• 7:58Speaker 02

  I was very shy, very introverted, to the point of terrified to sing in front of people by myself. I could do it with mom really easy. But doing it on my own, my stepfather would make me sing at parties, and I would be mortified. And I remember thinking, "I can't do this." But somehow with mom, I could. So she became my absolute barometer for, you know, happiness and joy and all the things that you feel when you're making your parent proud. I knew. I knew that she was proud of me when I did the singing thing. So you can imagine how much I wanted to fulfill that fantasy,

• 8:42Speaker 02

  that God mom was as ambitious as she was.

• 8:45Anderson Cooper?

  She took the lead on.

• 8:47Speaker 02

  She was the boss. I worked for her.

• 8:51Anderson Cooper?

  And that's what it was. It was work.

• 8:53Speaker 02

  It was work because it was too much for me as an introvert. I was so green, and I couldn't even balance my checkbook hardly. I just wasn't a business person. I just wanted to sing. I didn't care. She loved the fame, loved, had the wave, wore the outfits, twirled on stage, loved an audience. And I just wanted to rock with a band. I didn't care about all that.

• 9:18Anderson Cooper?

  You get signed at, you're 18. At 17, you had thoughts of suicide.

• 9:25Speaker 02

  Yes. I attempted.

• 9:26Anderson Cooper?

  You attempted?

• 9:28Speaker 02

  I was thrown out of the house and I went to live with my stepfather. And he told me I was going to college. That the singing thing wasn't gonna happen. And I think I went into a real depression. And one night I took the car and I went drinking and I tried to run into a tree. And it didn't work, but that was my goal. And I ended up 360 facing the opposite way. It's a god thing for sure. And I just was done. I didn't think I was gonna be in music anymore. And he wanted me to cut off my, he cut my hair off and wouldn't let me wear makeup 'cause I looked too much like my mom.

• 10:10Anderson Cooper?

  Wow.

• 10:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I was living just in this state of hell on earth, knowing that my dream was over.

• 10:18Anderson Cooper?

  Did you really want to?

• 10:20Speaker 02

  Yes, I was done. I was done. I, I had such a tumultuous relationship with my stepfather. And now I know why, but at the time I didn't. And for him to be that in my face about not singing was taking oxygen from me. I was just overcome with grief and sadness and anger. And I just didn't wanna be here anymore.

• 10:47Anderson Cooper?

  You thought he was your biological dad?

• 10:49Speaker 02

  Yes, I would learn at 30 that he's not.

• 10:51Anderson Cooper?

  Other people, not just your mom, but other people knew?

• 10:54Speaker 02

  Everybody knew.

• 10:55Anderson Cooper?

  And they lied to you?

• 10:56Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 10:57Anderson Cooper?

  Everybody did.

• 10:58Speaker 02

  Everybody did. Ashley knew since she was 11.

• 11:00Anderson Cooper?

  Really?

• 11:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:02Anderson Cooper?

  And she didn't tell you? No one told you?

• 11:04Speaker 02

  Ashley ended up being the one to tell me. Mom couldn't, she was crying too hard. And she just couldn't, she couldn't do it. So Ashley finally blurted it out. Michael Simonella is not your father, biologically.

• 11:17Anderson Cooper?

  When you heard the truth about your dad, you're 30 years old, what, what do you do?

• 11:23Speaker 02

  First thing I said, Anderson, was, Mom, it's okay. Talk about codependent, I was...

• 11:30Anderson Cooper?

  Did you believe that or did you just wanna make her feel good?

• 11:33Speaker 02

  She was crying so hard. It was sort of all about her in that moment.

• 11:37Anderson Cooper?

  It says a lot about you that you find this devastating news and you wanna comfort her.

• 11:45Speaker 02

  I've always been that way with her. People don't believe me, but I've always thought of her first. And that's because I always knew that I was her light, 'cause she told me so.

• 11:58Anderson Cooper?

  Did you feel responsible for her?

• 11:59Speaker 02

  Yes, very much so. I knew at an early age that my mother was not well. And I just felt this unimaginable sense of struggle to keep us going. We were so poor, food insecurity, barely able to pay the rent. And thank God for welfare back then, because we made it. But I just knew that I had to get her out of that on some level. I just knew that I was responsible for that.

• 12:33Anderson Cooper?

  That feeling is an awful feeling.

• 12:35Speaker 02

  It is an awful feeling. I will tell you this, and I've never said this in an interview before, but at a very early age, my mother looked at me and I'll never forget it, I was probably four. It was when Ashley was being born. Uh, and she said, you're, you know, mama's little helper. And she bought me an apron that said it. And I have a picture of me doing the dishes. On that level, I knew that I was responsible for her. And it never stopped. And there was a sense of resentment because I couldn't be a kid. I think at age six, I had a meeting with myself and said, okay, time to buck up, put on your armor. That's probably where that came from.

• 13:19Speaker 02

  And it's time to get this family out of depression and poverty. And I just knew, you know, that I was responsible for Ashley. I just did. I was left with her so much by myself.

• 13:30Anderson Cooper?

  That's terrifying.

• 13:31Speaker 02

  That I learned to cook. It's terrifying. I learned to cook when I was six.

• 13:35Anderson Cooper?

  My mom had a, a picture by some artist and underneath it said, "The Strong Child." And in my mind, I always said to myself, I am the strong child. I still have that print hanging on my wall in my closet.

• 13:47Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 13:48Anderson Cooper?

  Where I see it every day and I say to myself...

• 13:49Speaker 02

  That's quite a burden, my dear.

• 13:50Anderson Cooper?

  It's messed up, but I'm...

• 13:53Speaker 02

  It's okay, 'cause we're not victims.

• 13:54Anderson Cooper?

  Well, that is, that's for sure.

• 13:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:56Anderson Cooper?

  To be on the road and working and have this incredible success, but to have that feeling of, I gotta do this 'cause, you know, 'cause you're the strong child, that's, that's a lot.

• 14:07Speaker 02

  It is a lot. I'm the first born, so I was put in a position of being strong from a very early age. And I was the sad kid who was emotional and sweet because I wanted people's love more than anything in this world. It was oxygen to my brain. So it was just a sadness of not being able to go outside and play, 'cause I had to do chores. But it also made me the strong woman I am today.

• 14:32Anderson Cooper?

  Did you want, like, God, I wish somebody would just step in, like, isn't there an adult who can come in here and help?

• 14:39Speaker 02

  My mamaw did.

• 14:40Anderson Cooper?

  Your mamaw did?

• 14:41Speaker 02

  Michael Simonella, my stepfather, his mother took me into her arms at age 12 and said, "I love you. I have always loved you since I knew you were gonna be born, and I will always love you." And she was telling me then, you're gonna find out that I'm not biological and you're gonna know that you were loved and chosen.

• 15:04Anderson Cooper?

  She wanted to implant that in you?

• 15:05Speaker 02

  Absolutely, 100%.

• 15:07Anderson Cooper?

  When did she die?

• 15:10Speaker 02

  1985, 86, somewhere in there. And I'm still to this day in denial. I just can't believe she's gone. She raised me and loved me and let me sing anytime I wanted to sing. And nobody did that. She was the one that said, "Sing to me." And she let me do it authentically. There was no performance, right? 'Cause you know how kids learn to perform and get attention. This was love unconditionally.

• 15:39Anderson Cooper?

  I wanted to, actually, I played the song from the new album that you wrote about your dad.

• 15:43Speaker 02

  I didn't know my daddy. I guess he was proud. That's the first two lines.

• 15:51Anderson Cooper?

  Yeah.

• 15:52Speaker 02

  It's a heavy song.

• 15:54Anderson Cooper?

  It's a beautiful song.

• 15:55Speaker 02

  It's a beautiful song. You're awful, but my heart's hollowed out like a spark when I found you watching me on TV. On your couch with your last breath, did you finally see? I was always ready for you to love me. I can't help but feel mad at these words that I read. How can a headstone pine hill know you better than me? Better than me?

• 16:40Speaker 02

  Better than me? I was ready to find you. You were ready to leave. The girl who could see. Before you left, I didn't quite get your last name. Did you hear the same lines that kept us away? Two worlds apart. I'm crying there and he wouldn't let me fix the vocal.

• 17:25Speaker 02

  Who I was to you was still a mystery to me. Was I ever really your daughter? I didn't know my daddy. I guess he was proud. The plot turns in Coal Mine, Kentucky, where he sleeps in the ground.

• 18:04Anderson Cooper?

  It's beautiful. What an extraordinary thing to be able to turn what's in here into that and give that to people.

• 18:19Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 18:20Anderson Cooper?

  It's extraordinary.

• 18:21Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 18:28Anderson Cooper?

  Sorry. Um.

• 18:29Speaker 02

  There's no sorry.

• 18:30Anderson Cooper?

  Yeah, I try not to do sorry anymore. When you find out his name, did you try to find him?

• 18:37Speaker 02

  I did. Charles Jordan is my biological father. I found out what he looked like in a tabloid because someone had taken a picture of him. I was gonna go meet him and he died two weeks later.

• 18:50Anderson Cooper?

  You saw him for the first time in a tablet?

• 18:52Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm, yeah.

• 18:54Anderson Cooper?

  So this is, this is him?

• 18:56Speaker 02

  That's him.

• 18:57Anderson Cooper?

  Do you know much about him?

• 18:59Speaker 02

  I don't. I'm gonna start the process of learning more. I met my brother six years ago.

• 19:04Anderson Cooper?

  His?

• 19:05Speaker 02

  His son. So I now have a brother that I'm very close to, very close to. He's my light.

• 19:13Anderson Cooper?

  You question this in the song.

• 19:14Speaker 02

  Did you ever buy a ticket?

• 19:15Anderson Cooper?

  Did he ever buy a ticket?

• 19:16Speaker 02

  Did you come to a show?

• 19:17Anderson Cooper?

  Yeah.

• 19:18Speaker 02

  He knew about me. Everybody knew about them. And on some level, Mom talked to Michael in a way, and I still don't know the whole story about this, but he really thought he was the father. So he married Mom.

• 19:35Speaker 02

  And he didn't find out, he didn't hear the words, "You're not the father," until Ashley was born.

• 19:42Anderson Cooper?

  When you heard that and you saw all the clips, newspaper clips and People Magazine clips?

• 19:53Speaker 02

  I don't even know words that can define it. I think I was just despondent for a while. You know, here I have everything, Anderson. I'm the American dream. You know, I can do anything I want to do musically. I can go wherever I want to go in the world. And yet I don't know who my father is. And this isn't something I can fix. There was no choice. He died. So it was over before I could do anything, really. And I was terrified that he was gonna be the guy that, you know, just wanted to be around me because I was famous. So I put it off. Please don't put things off, people. Make the phone call. I regret it every day.

• 20:36Anderson Cooper?

  You knew who he was, but you didn't try to find him early?

• 20:39Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 20:39Anderson Cooper?

  By the time you tried to find him, he had already died?

• 20:41Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 20:42Anderson Cooper?

  And that's the regret?

• 20:43Speaker 02

  That's the regret. I grieve that still to this day because I think, of course, you know, what if? What if he was a good guy? What if he knew me? He would love me. It's a mystery to me.

• 20:55Anderson Cooper?

  Yeah.

• 20:56Speaker 02

  He was the missing piece in the family because it's so dysfunctional. I was in the middle of, you know, two families that knew that I was not Michael's biological daughter. And there was a lot of fighting and arguments over me.

• 21:13Anderson Cooper?

  My mom's dad died when she was 15 months old, and she really knew nothing, very little about him. And she always had a fantasy her entire life that he had written her a letter and that someday this letter was gonna kind of show up somewhere.

• 21:26Speaker 02

  I totally get that.

• 21:27Anderson Cooper?

  Yeah, I know, I get it too.

• 21:29Speaker 02

  The knight in shining armor, yeah.

• 21:30Anderson Cooper?

  Of course, there was, there was no letter.

• 21:32Speaker 02

  There was no letter.

• 21:33Anderson Cooper?

  Well, I hope you find some more answers.

• 21:34Speaker 02

  I know, I do too.

• 21:36Speaker 03

  We'll have more with Winona Judd in a moment.

• 21:42Speaker 03

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• 21:55Speaker 04

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• 22:09Speaker 03

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• 22:15Speaker 04

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• 22:16Speaker 03

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• 22:23Anderson Cooper?

  Your mom had talked publicly about depression, but she didn't really go into the full scope of the, the level of, of pain that she was in.

• 22:32Speaker 02

  Uh-uh. She never did. She was so shamed.

• 22:35Anderson Cooper?

  That's why, it was shame.

• 22:36Speaker 02

  Shame and guilt. And I think she was very fragile and she didn't want to ever reveal that. Very tender and sweet sometimes, but then very strict and very hard on me. So I think she battled with that dynamic so much because she wanted to be entertaining and fun and she wanted to be famous.

• 22:59Anderson Cooper?

  It's exhausting, though. If you're struggling with depression and mental illness, to have that facade to maintain is, that's a lot.

• 23:07Speaker 02

  Yep. She was definitely let down by the pharmaceuticals and the doctors. She got what she wanted from certain doctors. She battled pretty severely in the end. And I knew it, and it broke my heart over and over again because she just never got the help she needed. And it was debilitating.

• 23:29Anderson Cooper?

  For you to also have to keep the public facade

• 23:33Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:34Anderson Cooper?

  on, to protect her, the secrets she wanted to keep, that's also exhausting.

• 23:39Speaker 02

  It is exhausting. That's why I did this record. These songs are my testimony. I'm literally standing in front of the church, giving my deepest, darkest moments before God, and I'm just begging to be understood and heard at least. Because if it wasn't for this music, I don't know if I would have made it or not. Because my heart was so broken.

• 24:01Anderson Cooper?

  Let's play a little bit of Broken and Blessed.

• 24:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, probably gonna cry again.

• 24:06Anderson Cooper?

  That's all right. Me too.

• 24:09Speaker 02

  I'm here. I'm ready to live in this day. I'm not alone at all. It brings my weight because I know who I am. I am here, broken and blessed, my worst and my best. I sing, no matter the shape that my heart is in. Hey, it doesn't have to be black or white. When I lay my body down in the dead of the night.

• 24:54Speaker 02

  I'm just praying for the light when I'm somewhere between hell and hallelujah.

• 25:10Anderson Cooper?

  Does singing help?

• 25:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's everything. I think about these songs constantly. When I say I'm somewhere between hell and hallelujah, that's every day. That gives me the permission to keep on trying, to keep on walking. Find something that you're so passionate about that you cannot not do it. And that's what I did with this record.

• 25:33Anderson Cooper?

  That line is, is great.

• 25:35Speaker 02

  I just love these words. And each song has such a meaningful place in my grieving that the words literally helped heal me.

• 25:46Anderson Cooper?

  I must say, since I heard this, I stopped saying to myself in the mirror, "You gotta put it on your arm," and I've started to say, "I'm broken and blessed."

• 25:52Speaker 02

  Yes. It's true. I am broken and blessed, and everybody's confused about that because I don't know if people really know that you can be both in one second.

• 26:04Speaker 02

  You can. You can live with the pain. You really can. You really can if you're willing to let it ebb and flow. And broken and blessed, I feel like both in any given moment and every day.

• 26:17Anderson Cooper?

  It's really only in the last year I've been saying to myself, like, I am so broken. And I'm kind of okay with it. Like, it's, it's kind of nice to acknowledge.

• 26:25Speaker 02

  It's not a weakness.

• 26:27Anderson Cooper?

  It's not?

• 26:28Speaker 02

  It's not, for me anymore. It used to feel like that, but I don't feel that way anymore. I can be broken-hearted on stage and say, "Man, I'm feeling broken-hearted today. My daughter..." dot, dot, dot. Or what it's like to raise a kid at 62, or whatever. I can say it now, and I'm like you. I don't feel the shame of it because it's part of who I am.

• 26:55Anderson Cooper?

  It's that old line, "You're stronger in the broken places."

• 26:57Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 26:58Anderson Cooper?

  Andrew Garfield was on this podcast, and he talked about, "The wound is the only root to the gift." And I think that's a great way to think about it.

• 27:08Anderson Cooper?

  I rejected the wound. I didn't want to feel it because I didn't want the pain of it.

• 27:12Speaker 02

  Uh-uh.

• 27:12Anderson Cooper?

  And by doing that, I deprived myself of the gift, which is, is feeling. And feeling the people who are dead, feeling them still alive inside me and feeling the love that, that I had for them.

• 27:25Speaker 02

  I wouldn't go to, you know, these retreats and stuff for the longest time because I literally thought I would die of a broken heart while there. I went to a six-day intensive. It was just me and a group of people at a facility in Nashville. And I did the work and I didn't die. I made it through and it worked. And I trusted the process. And to this day, I'm like, I'm not gonna die of a broken heart. I'm actually gonna be okay. It's called On Sight. It's in Nashville. And it's where my journey began in 2006.

• 28:06Anderson Cooper?

  I think grief feels so lonely.

• 28:08Speaker 02

  It does feel lonely.

• 28:09Anderson Cooper?

  And, and yet, it is this road that generations of people who you come from have walked down. And everybody who has ever lived will walk down at some point in their life.

• 28:20Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 28:21Anderson Cooper?

  When my brother died by suicide, it was a complete shock to me. I subsequently learned it maybe shouldn't have been, and there were a lot more signs than I realized and things I didn't know. Was it a shock to you that your mom died by suicide?

• 28:37Speaker 02

  No. She talked about it a lot, even to her grandson, who's a deputy.

• 28:42Anderson Cooper?

  Okay.

• 28:43Speaker 02

  About jumping off a bridge. And she talked about it so much with me, I don't know who else besides Ashley, but she talked about it a lot. And I think I got to the point where, "No, no, no, no, no, no, you're not gonna do that. You're, you have too much to live for."

• 29:03Anderson Cooper?

  Do you remember the first time she talked about it and how you felt about it?

• 29:06Speaker 02

  Uh-uh. I don't remember the first time because she talked about it so much. But I do know that she was always watching those shows, those damn shows on TV about stuff like that. And I just remember thinking, "What is she doing? I don't understand." And she'd call me and say, "I don't want to be here anymore." And I'd go over and spend the night with her. And it was awful. It was really awful. She was really struggling in the end.

• 29:32Speaker 03

  We'll be back with Winona in a moment.

• 29:39Anderson Cooper?

  Your daughter has struggled with drugs. You've been very open about that. I think she's incarcerated right now.

• 29:45Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:45Anderson Cooper?

  You have a song about the drive you were making to visit her while she was incarcerated, the three-hour drive there and back. And you are raising her daughter, who's now four. That's a whole other kind of grief.

• 29:58Speaker 02

  It's ongoing. It never leaves me. I'm aware of Grace every minute of my day. And my heart breaks because she, the money ran out and she cut me off. And it's the letting go and it's the hard love, tough love. All those terms come to mind. And she's really mad at me right now.

• 30:19Anderson Cooper?

  She is not communicating with you because?

• 30:23Speaker 02

  Because I said no. I enabled her so much that I've spent a fortune on her recovery, trying to save her, and it doesn't work that way. And I finally get it, finally get it. And when she had Kalia, she was still using. And I stepped in to save Kalia. And now she has type one diabetes. So that's a 24/7 kind of thing where we have to check on her even in the middle of the night. So I just stepped in because she wasn't sober. And she's really mad at me right now. And that's okay. Because Grace has a destiny and I'm waiting. I'm a mother in waiting. I sit every day and think about it all the time. What could I have done differently?

• 31:06Speaker 02

  I feel like I have failed her in some ways. And then yet I gave her money to buy a car and she used it to buy meth.

• 31:14Anderson Cooper?

  That's the drug she's using now?

• 31:15Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 31:15Anderson Cooper?

  It's an awful drug.

• 31:16Speaker 02

  It's debilitating. She's been using since she was about 12, which I didn't know. Not meth, but she started out with dope and pills and stuff like that and here and there. In jail, you can get as much drug as you want. So it doesn't mean you're sober when you're incarcerated. Going to visit her in a prison, I had two hours with her. And I could hug her once, which in itself was, can you imagine not hugging your kid? But I went every week and sat and listened to her. And she wants to be well. And I want her to be well. But the grief of that is hard to explain.

• 32:01Speaker 02

  When mom died by suicide, the next morning, I went to the Country Music Hall of Fame and got inducted into the Hall of Fame. And I still don't know how I did it. But I did because it was the next right thing. And I kept breathing and I thought, I have a destiny too. So that's how I get through stuff, is I realize Grace has a destiny. I'm part of her story, but she's 30 years old and she cannot continue to blame me forever. But I'm just gonna start taking better care of myself and say no. And that's what I had to start doing with her. And it almost killed me.

• 32:37Anderson Cooper?

  You mentioned that the day after your mom died, we have that video, is it right if I play that?

• 32:41Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm. I'm gonna make this fast because my heart's broken. And I feel so blessed. And it's a very strange dynamic to be this broken and this blessed. This is the first time I've talked since saying goodbye to her. At 2:20, I kissed her on the forehead and I walked away. And this is the first place I've been. So the last thing we did together as a family with her was we all gathered around her. And we said, "The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.

• 33:26Speaker 02

  He leadeth me beside the still waters. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me in all the days of my life. And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."

• 33:53Anderson Cooper?

  It's lovely.

• 33:54Speaker 02

  I don't even remember doing that.

• 33:56Anderson Cooper?

  You don't?

• 33:56Speaker 02

  No, I don't remember hardly any of it. But I did it. And I'm really grateful. I think that's probably where Broken and Blessed got started.

• 34:06Anderson Cooper?

  I was wondering.

• 34:07Speaker 02

  Yeah. That's probably where it got started.

• 34:09Anderson Cooper?

  You also wrote a song, this is to your mom, All Downhill from Ashland.

• 34:14Speaker 02

  Hey, hey mama, can you hear me now? I'm far from heaven, but I'm screaming loud. You held the curse from your mama's hands for me to wear around me like a family brand.

• 34:35Speaker 02

  Well, I was left here in the space between where you couldn't love you, so how could you love me? And you left your demons back in the hollow. Why the hell you dragging me into the muddy waters? Kentucky roots burning deep in our blood. And there are some things that you just can't rise above. If we don't know the beginning was the end. We should have known, we would have known.

• 35:15Speaker 02

  The truth is, it was all downhill from Ashland.

• 35:24Anderson Cooper?

  You held the curse from your mama's hands for me to wear around me like a family brand.

• 35:31Speaker 02

  Some deep stuff there, brother.

• 35:32Anderson Cooper?

  Yeah, it sure is.

• 35:34Speaker 02

  Generational curses, things that pass down from generation to generation.

• 35:39Anderson Cooper?

  You feel that, you believe that.

• 35:40Speaker 02

  I believe that with all my heart.

• 35:41Anderson Cooper?

  I've started to believe that too.

• 35:43Speaker 02

  I do. It's like an alcoholic. If your great-grandfather was an alcoholic and your grandfather was an alcoholic and your father's an alcoholic, the chances are good that you could be too. It's just a thing that's passed down from generation to generation. Do I believe in breaking them now? Uh, hell yeah. That's why I'm breaking the cycle with Cactus and raising our granddaughter. I'm breaking the cycle. I am emphatic about raising Kalia differently.

• 36:10Anderson Cooper?

  Do you talk to your mom? Do you talk to the people you love?

• 36:13Speaker 02

  Absolutely, yeah. I do a lot. I do a lot.

• 36:17Anderson Cooper?

  Do you do it in your head or out loud?

• 36:18Speaker 02

  Both. Well, I bet you love that, Mom, you know, or, "Hey, I've lost 20 pounds."

• 36:30Anderson Cooper?

  Does she talk back?

• 36:32Speaker 02

  No, not yet, not yet. What about you?

• 36:36Anderson Cooper?

  I talk to my dad.

• 36:37Speaker 02

  Do you?

• 36:38Anderson Cooper?

  A lot. And I feel him for the first time.

• 36:40Speaker 02

  Okay, interesting.

• 36:41Anderson Cooper?

  Because I ran from it, I didn't really feel anybody, but I do feel him. I had a nanny who was really my mom for the beginning of my life. And named May, she was Scottish. I talked to her all the time.

• 36:52Speaker 02

  It's comforting.

• 36:53Anderson Cooper?

  It is comforting. It is.

• 36:55Speaker 02

  Very comforting.

• 36:55Anderson Cooper?

  Yeah. I can't, I...

• 37:06Anderson Cooper?

  Yeah, I can't talk to my brother. And I can't see him.

• 37:14Anderson Cooper?

  Like I don't... There's something about the way he died that, uh, all I see is that.

• 37:23Speaker 02

  Okay. I'm at that place where all I see is her laying on the floor and her body. And I get it. I know what you're saying, that grief is so deep and wide.

• 37:35Anderson Cooper?

  Yeah. It's so, um...

• 37:42Anderson Cooper?

  The, um, the violence of it and the horror of it is shocking still to me.

• 37:50Speaker 02

  I hear you. I wish I could give you a hug. All this is important though to share with people.

• 37:57Anderson Cooper?

  Yeah.

• 37:58Speaker 02

  Because we're not alone.

• 38:00Anderson Cooper?

  Yeah. Somebody said this to me, somebody who dies by suicide, they're obviously in tremendous pain and they just want the pain to end. But the pain doesn't actually end. It just gets transferred to everybody else.

• 38:12Speaker 02

  Amen.

• 38:13Anderson Cooper?

  Yeah. Um, this is probably the weirdest interview you've done, right?

• 38:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:20Anderson Cooper?

  Were you like, wait a minute, he's doing a whole show on grief?

• 38:25Speaker 02

  I wanted to do this.

• 38:26Anderson Cooper?

  How long is it?

• 38:27Speaker 02

  I wanted to do this.

• 38:30Anderson Cooper?

  I'm grateful.

• 38:31Speaker 02

  Grief is something that we should look at so differently and we don't. I love when I can sing with a broken heart because I give it everything I've got, like I'm literally begging for my life through a song. When Cactus and I are on stage, we're, singing love can build a bridge. And I'm feeling my mother and I'm looking up at her. And I'm just feeling this Holy Spirit moment. And I look out in the audience and someone's crying. It's, it's a language of love for me on stage, that grief is part of who I am. And people, you know, their comments are, "I thought Winona was so strong. She has everything, she's made it." You know, "What is she crying about?"

• 39:16Speaker 02

  Well, I'm crying about all this crap that's happened to me and it's made me feel grief. But I'm not gonna give up. I'm gonna walk through it, same as you. That's why you're doing this podcast, to help others. If I can help one person not commit suicide, if I can help one person get the help they need and reach out and not do it alone, then I've done my part. I just want them to feel like they can do the same thing that I did in terms of moving forward, but not to do it numb, to really feel and embrace every aspect of life. And I'm marching through the storm, literally like,

• 39:59Speaker 02

  "Good luck, you know, getting me down today, devil." I think there's a moment at the end of the day where I'm like, "Well, son of a, I made it through another day without being a victim. I don't feel that way anymore."

• 40:16Anderson Cooper?

  I saw a quote, you said, "The pain of losing mom on 4:30 to suicide is so great that I often feel like I'm not ever gonna be able to fully accept and surrender to the truth that she left the way she did." This cannot be how the judge's story ends.

• 40:31Speaker 02

  That was then. You still feel that? No, I don't feel that way as much anymore. Because I now know that there's such a stigma. When you say mental illness, nobody wants to talk about it. And there is so much shame and guilt about carrying the secret. That at the time, I just, I couldn't believe it. Obviously, I was in denial. And I went through that. So I passed that stage. And I'm now in the place of acceptance. I accept it. For the first time in four years. I'm now at a place where I can forgive her and love her in spite of it. I have pictures, glorious pictures of the two of us. And in one picture, I'm holding her. And just the tenderness on my face. You know, that's my mom.

• 41:15Speaker 02

  That's my sweetie pie. And she's my love. And I love her so deeply. That I can see her as fragile and not the way that I would when she was strict and in her manic state. I can see her in the sweetness. There's a sweetness that happened, no matter what was going on in life. When we hit the stage, we would look at each other and everything is okay. And it worked. For a long time.

• 41:45Anderson Cooper?

  There's a video of you guys, I think it was the last time you were on stage together. Is there to play that?

• 41:51Speaker 02

  Sure. It's our last performance.

• 41:53Anderson Cooper?

  Last performance?

• 41:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:57Speaker 02

  This is really happening.

• 43:03Speaker 02

  In spite of it all, we still could sing.

• 43:06Anderson Cooper?

  Is there something you've learned in grief that would be helpful for others?

• 43:10Speaker 02

  For me, I embrace it. Sometimes I even plan a day around it.

• 43:14Anderson Cooper?

  Really?

• 43:14Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm. I just X out the day and say, I'm just gonna spend time. Her ashes are down at the lake on our farm. And I go down to the lake. And sometimes we fish, sometimes we just sit there and look around. And I'll just go down there and waste time. Because it works for me.

• 43:33Anderson Cooper?

  Do you feel her there?

• 43:34Speaker 02

  Yes. Very much so. Her farm was right next to mine, so her land butts up to mine. I do feel her a lot. I think she would be proud of me for making this record because it was hard. But grief for me means embracing it. I use it for my art. Writing these songs. I'm able to be a better grandmother because I embrace the grief. And I'm not ashamed of it anymore.

• 44:02Anderson Cooper?

  Thank you so much for doing this.

• 44:03Speaker 02

  Oh, I, I love you. I'm just so proud of you for doing this. I think it helps a lot of people.

• 44:08Anderson Cooper?

  I hope so.

• 44:09Speaker 02

  I know.

• 44:10Anderson Cooper?

  It helps me and it helps me to talk to you, so I really appreciate it.

• 44:14Anderson Cooper?

  If you have thoughts you'd like to share about my conversation with Wynonna, you can leave us a comment on our grief community page, cnn.com/allthereis. And if there's something you've learned in grief that would be helpful for others, we'd love to hear from you. Leave us a voicemail at 404-827-1805. On Thursday, October 22nd, I hope you join me at 9:15 PM for my streaming show, All There Is Live. It's on every other Thursday and you can watch new episodes live on cnn.com/allthereis. And it streams for free on our community page for a week after it airs live. To watch all the episodes, subscribe to CNN All Access at cnn.com/allaccess. Thanks so much for watching.

• 44:54Speaker 05

  Get ready for election night. CNN is available to stream live now with an All Access subscription. Plus, get exclusive content and interactive Q and As with CNN's journalists. Subscribe now. Visit cnn.com/allaccess.