The daughter of country music legend Wynonna Judd says she was the victim of sexual abuse at the hands of her former stepfather, and has accused her famous mother of failing to protect her.
Grace Kelley, 29, made the troubling claims while speaking to the Daily Progress, a Virginia-based news outlet, in July. In the interview, she said she was molested by D. R. Roach, whom Judd was married to from 2003 to 2007, when she was 10 years old.
“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,’” Kelley said, according to People. “When he was arrested and it came out in the news, that’s when she divorced him.”
She went on to note: “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. 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.”
A representative for Judd did not immediately respond to a HuffPost request for comment.
Judd filed for divorce from Roach ― her second husband and former bodyguard ― in 2007, shortly after he’d been arrested in Abilene, Texas, on three counts of aggravated sexual battery on a minor under the age of 13. Roach’s victim was never publicly identified.
According to Reuters, Judd released a statement on her website at the time in which she said she was “obviously devastated” at the charges leveled against Roach, adding: “We will move forward with our faith, family and our friends to find resolution to this difficult situation.”
Speaking to Ladies Home Journal later that year, the five-time Grammy winner said she “knew what I was getting into” when she married Roach and “tried to change it.”
“I know the people I chose, I know why I chose them and I really thought that I could change people through loving them enough. It doesn’t work that way,” she explained in the interview, per People.
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Kelley ― whose father is Judd’s first husband, Arch Kelley III ― has faced a number of personal challenges in recent years. Recently, she served six weeks in jail after being charged with felony grand larceny and driving without a license in October of last year. These days, she’s a mom to a 3-year-old daughter, Kaliyah, and has been focused on staying sober after relocating to Charlottesville, Virginia.
Looking ahead, Kelley told the Daily Progress she’s at work on a memoir titled “Pronoia” in which she’ll share the “difficult story” of her childhood in Nashville.
“I believe that now’s my time,” she explained. “I never had a voice, and I was iffy about talking about all this stuff, but no matter what is said about me, the Bible says the truth will set you free.”
