Wynonna Judd’s Daughter Claims Singer Was ‘Never a Mother’ and Reveals Stepdad Molested Her

Wynonna Judd’s daughter has lashed out at her mother over her treatment in the wake of her alleged molestation at the hands of her former stepfather.

The 61-year-old country music icon’s daughter Grace Kelley, 29, accused her mother of allegedly trying to cover up the sexual abuse she was subjected to while speaking with The Daily Progress earlier in July.

The Daily Mail has contacted Judd’s representatives to request comment but hasn’t yet received a response. 

In the interview, Kelley — who has had multiple run-ins with the law in recent years — said she was molested by Judd’s then-husband D. R. Roach, whom the singer was married to from 2003 to 2007.

In March of 2007, Judd — whose mother Naomi Judd died by suicide in April 2022 — filed to divorce Roach just days after he was arrested and charged with three counts of aggravated sexual battery on a child under the age of 13.

Roach’s victim was not publicly named at the time, but Kelley has now confirmed that she was his target. 

Roach — who was Judd’s bodyguard before becoming her second husband — eventually pleaded guilty to a charge of attempt to commit aggravated sexual battery, and he has an active status as an ‘offender against children,’ according to the Tennessee sex offender registry.

According to Kelley, after her stepfather molested her, Judd allegedly responded by taking her whole family to counseling, where Roach’s conduct became known.

‘Then 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.

‘When he was arrested and it came out in the news, that’s when she divorced him,’ Kelley continued. ‘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’s a good performer. 

‘She was never a mother,’ Kelley added.

She went on to describe a troubled childhood with numerous professional interventions, none of which took.

‘Between 12 and 17, I was in 14 different facilities,’ Kelley admitted. 

In recent years she has been arrested multiple times for methamphetamine production, evading arrest and driving while intoxicated, and her most recent offense was for stealing the church van of a pastor from his home in rural Virginia in October 2024.

Kelley — whom Judd shares with her first husband, Arch Kelley III — had gone to prison for her multiple drug-related charges before her latest crime, but she admitted that she was grateful that she had stolen from the pastor, Kent Hart of Ground Zero Church.

She was accused of stealing the pastor’s van, though he got in another car and attempted to box her in to stop her.

Police eventually stopped her, at which point she allegedly told them that ‘she had sold her soul to the devil.’

According to police, she later tested positive for heroin use that evening.

Hart, who lives 20 miles from the nearest town in a rural area, previously told the Daily Mail that he believed Kelley may have snuck into his trailer while he was watching his son’s ballgame and come along for their ride back home.

He added that he later found a bag and some shoes in the trailer that he believed belonged to her, bolstering his suspicions. 

She claimed that she ‘got a hold of some bad drugs’ and began ‘hallucinating’ before the incident.

Kelley described getting into the trailer without realizing that it was owned by Hart’s church, then falling asleep while he drove home without realizing he had a stowaway. 

Upon waking up, Kelley said she began to panic after finding herself in a wooded area she didn’t recognize. 

‘It was like Texas Chain Saw Massacre in my mind,’ she said, referencing the iconic 1974 horror film about a group of friends who are brutally tortured and murdered by a secretive family after stumbling onto their secluded rural property.

She took off in Hart’s van, but he saw the departing vehicle and was able to give chase in another car, though the van was damaged during Kelley’s escapade.

Judd’s daughter was arrested on October 27 and hit with seven charges, but a plea deal she accepted in December allowed her to plead guilty to only three charges of possession of drug paraphernalia, drugged driving and petty larceny.

Kelley had been in jail for six weeks between her arrest and pleading guilty, so she was only sentenced to time served. 

The time behind bars proved to be beneficial, as it allowed Kelley to get sober in jail. 

She also got an offer of assistance from a surprising source: Hart’s wife.

Although Kelley wasn’t supposed to contact members of the church as part of her plea deal, Megan Hart contacted her on Facebook afterward. The two developed a friendship, which built up to Kelley being baptized at Hart’s church.

‘If it wasn’t for Pastor Kent and Megan Hart, I would still be out there using,’ Kelley said. ‘I’d still be out there doing the same thing I was.’

Hart boasted that ‘there’s a lot of victory going on’ in Kelley’s life now. 

‘We’re just continuing to walk with her as we know Jesus would want us to,’ he added.

Since focusing on her sobriety and her faith, Kelley said she has written a memoir titled Pronoia. The title is a psychological term describing the opposite state of paranoia, in which a person believes that those around them are working to help them succeed, rather than conspiring against them.

‘I believe that now’s my time,’ Kelley said. ‘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.’

Earlier this year, her mother Wynonna Judd gave her fans a look into her special relationship with her young granddaughter Kaliyah.

Although Judd tends to keep her personal life fairly private, she gave a rare update on how she was raising the two-year-old girl during an appearance in January as a guest host on the Today Show.

Judd had been caring for her granddaughter in the wake of her daughter’s repeated run-ins with the law.

Kelley had been arrested twice in 2024, first for soliciting prostitution before she was again apprehended for stealing the church van and driving it on a ‘heroin-fueled rampage.’

While chatting with regular Today host Jenna Bush Hager, Judd admitted that she tried to avoid electronic distractions when she’s spending quality time with her granddaughter.

‘I don’t have a computer,’ she revealed. ‘I don’t watch television unless it’s planned ’cause I’m raising my 2½-year-old granddaughter. I listen to her.’

The singer added that her rejection of unnecessary technology meant she was rarely sharing photos on Instagram, and she enforced a no-phones rule at the dinner table.

However, there’s one thing that little Kaliyah absolutely can’t live without — the YouTube star Ms. Rachel. 

‘I’m about to lose my mind,’ Judd joked about her overdose on children’s music.

Although she applauded Ms. Rachel for her commitment and for creating videos that children adore, she made it clear that she could never do something similar.

‘I just can’t talk like that. I wish I could be that animated, but I just don’t know how,’ she admitted. 

‘My life on the farm is simple and sweet, which is what we need more of,’ Judd continued. 

She has stepped in to care for her grandchild amid her daughter Grace’s repeated legal issues.

Grace gave birth to her daughter after a May 2023 arrest for violating her parole and breaching a restraining order, according to The Daily Beast.

She was ultimately granted a short leave from jail in order to give birth, but she had to return afterward to finish out her sentence.

Then, in April 2024, Grace was arrested in Alabama after allegedly exposing her breasts and ‘lower body’ while walking next to a busy highway.

She was initially charged with two misdemeanors, indecent exposure and obstructing government operations, but later that month a third charge of soliciting prostitution was added.

In an exclusive interview with The Daily Mail, Millbrook Police Chief P.K. Johnson claimed that Kelley had been holding a sign by the road that read, ‘A Ride for a Ride.’

Kelley’s soliciting charge was eventually dropped, and her indecent exposure charged was reduce to the less-severe public lewdness.

That wasn’t the end of her legal run-ins, as she was arrested in August 2024 in rural Georgia and charged with misdemeanor counts of fleeing or attempting to elude a police officer, driving with a suspended/revoked license and not using motorcycle equipment properly, per the Carroll County Jail’s records.