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Wynonna Judd biography

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Quick Facts

  • NAME: Wynonna Judd
  • OCCUPATION: Singer
  • BIRTH DATE: May 30, 1964 (Age: 48)
  • PLACE OF BIRTH: Ashland, Kentucky
  • Originally: Christina Claire Ciminella
  • ZODIAC SIGN: Gemini

Best Known For

Wynonna Judd is a country music superstar, famous for her solo hits and alongside her mother, Naomi Judd.


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It went platinum five times over and spawned four top-ten singles. Her second album, Tell Me Why, released a year later, also became a multi-platinum success. Controversy soon arose when Judd became the subject of some criticism in the country music world for having an out-of-wedlock child, Elijah Judd, in 1994. She married his father, Arch Kelley, in 1996 while pregnant with their second child, Grace Pauline Judd.

Wynonna's third album, Revelations,

was released in 1996 and was also certified platinum. Her fourth album, 1997's The Other Side, was much less successful and led Judd to switch labels. Judd and Kelley divorced in 1998.

Setbacks

Judd's life in the 2000s has been a win some, lose some mixture of personal triumphs and setbacks. She has released three new studio albums, none of which sold as well as her earlier albums. She was arrested in 2003 for driving under the influence, just weeks before she married longtime boyfriend D.R. Roach.

In 2005, she released a memoir, Coming Home to Myself, which became a New York Times bestseller. A year later, she checked into rehab for food dependency issues. In 2007, her husband was arrested multiple counts of aggravated sexual battery on a child under the age of 13; Judd filed for divorce five days later.

Reunion

In 2010, The Judds announced a final reunion tour that fall. Wynonna and her mother were frequent guests on the Oprah Winfrey Show, having appeared a total of 18 times as guests and performers. The duo has a reality show on OWN, called simply The Judds.

Wynonna Judd is also returning to the recording studio for new albums and published a romance novel, Restless Heart, in 2011. Reflecting on her renewed sense of possibility in the new decade, Judd said, "I used to wake up and say, 'Oh, God, it's morning.' Now I say, 'Good morning, God.'"

© 2013 A+E Networks. All rights reserved.

© 2013 A+E Networks. All rights reserved.

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