Wynonna is baring her soul on The Hard Truth. On her latest LP, her first since her mom, Naomi Judd, died by suicide, Wynonna candidly shares all her trauma, an experience that was “beyond” therapeutic.
“I think it saved me. It really did,” Wynonna told editor-in-chief Lisa Konicki on the latest episode of the Off the Record podcast. “It saved me because I was really tanking for a while there. I just couldn’t accept that she killed herself.”
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“And I was so stunned that I stayed in that shock and denial for so long and went out on the road,” she continued. “I packed my bags, got on the bus, and went to my people, because I didn’t know what else to do. It was comfort.”
The album, which is out now, gave Wynonna “a voice” and allowed her not to feel “as lonely anymore.” While that’s certainly the case, talking about all of her ups and downs in such a public way is not easy.
“I will admit yesterday I had a little bit of a freak-out realizing I’m going to have to talk about this stuff, because for five years we kept it on the farm, and it took us a long time to put this down on vinyl,” Wynonna said. “I feel like the hard truth is what happens after someone says something and then someone else comes in and says something a little bit more than what was initially said.”
“It’s been said that our family is dysfunctional. Yes. It’s been said that Mom and I didn’t get along. Truth,” she continued. “What I say after that is what this album is about.”
Wynonna Discusses Her Mom’s Death
The album started in the wake of Judd’s death in April 2022.
“I literally walked into the room and saw her body, and Ashley [Judd] was at her feet, and I closed her eyes, and I kissed her on her forehead, and I walked away, and that was it. That was the end of our story,” Wynonna said. “That’s not how it was supposed to happen.”
From that point on, Wynonna “just started writing things down.”
“What would I say if I stood in front of the church and gave my testimony? What would I say? That’s what this album is about,” she explained. “… There are tears on these records, on these songs.”
The largest through line on the LP is Wynonna’s complicated relationship with her mother.
“As strong on stage as she was and twirling and everything, she was very fragile… I loved her. I love her so much that I forgot myself,” she said. “And I loved her so much that I wasn’t able to take care of myself in a way, because she was my bright light and everything revolved around if Mom was pleased with me or not… That’s the epitome of codependency. I was absolutely drawn to her like a moth to the flame.”
Wynonna Shares Hard Truths on Her Latest LP
In addition to songs about her mom, The Hard Truth also delves into the the situation surrounding Wynonna’s father.
For the first three decades of her life, Wynonna believed her father to be Michael Cimenella. She eventually found out, however, that her father was Charles Jordan, a man she never got to meet.
“I found out in a therapy session with my mother, and my mom couldn’t say the word, so Ashley told me,” Wynonna said of her sister. “She said, ‘Michael Ciminella is not your biological father.’ Mom just cried… I don’t know what I thought about it at the moment; I was just so devastated. I said, ‘Mom, it’s OK.’ I remember saying that.”
The situation is one that’s explored throughout the album, particularly on “Girl Who Could Sing,” which Wynonna said wrote itself.
“I never knew my daddy. There was a huge piece missing,” she said. “But when they found him, they went through his stuff and they found a drawer full of clippings. I told that to [my husband] Cactus [Moser] and he said, ‘That’s a song.’”
Wynonna also found inspiration in her daughter, Grace, who is currently incarcerated.
“‘Drive’ is about me driving to see her in prison… I miss my kid. I love my daughter, and she’s really angry with me, really angry with me,” she said. “… I’m going to continue to show up. I want no regrets. Whether it’s in prison or out of prison, I will show up for my kid… This record helped me figure that out, that it was the right thing to do, to show up for my kid.”
Wynonna Looks to the Future
As for how her mom would feel about Wynonna’s candidness on the difficult subjects, she admitted, “I think she would have been mortified. Mortified because she carried so much guilt about it.”
Even so, for Wynonna, the album felt like the right time to let all this pain go in a big way.
“I’ve gotten a lot of heat from the fans here and there who are judgmental. The keyboard cowards have said, ‘Why are you doing this now that she’s gone?’ Well, we kept a secret, and secrets keep you sick, and there’s no secret anymore,” she said. “I’m talking about it because the mental illness piece is a huge part of this. I am not a victim. I am a victor.”
Now that The Hard Truth is out in the world, Wynonna said she has “such a sense of forgiveness that I didn’t have” before.
“I understand why a lot more,” she said, before looking ahead to the next chapter of her life. “I think this next record, I’m going to want to do more joy just because I feel it… The next record will probably be ‘I’m OK,’ because there’s a song on the record, ‘Everything is not OK, but I’m OK with everything.‘”
