Ashley Judd’s New Memoir Talks of Rape, Incest and Parental Neglect!

ASHLEY JUDD has a new memoir out called "All That Is Bitter and Sweet".  And it's got to be one of the most revealing celebrity memoirs on the market.  It includes tales of rape, incest, sexual abuse, parental neglect and suicidal thoughts.

Ashley writes, quote, "My mother, while she was transforming herself into the country legend NAOMI JUDD, created an origin myth for the Judds that did not match my reality.

"I loved my mother, but at the same time I dreaded the mayhem and uncertainty that followed her everywhere. I often felt like an outsider observing my mom's life as she followed her own dreams.

"She and my sister [Wynonna] have been quoted as saying that our family put the 'fun' in dysfunction.  I wondered:  'Who, exactly, was having all the fun?  What was I missing?'"

Ashley says there was always marijuana in the home, and her dad was, quote, "prone to taking hallucinogenics with friends on Saturday nights."

Ashley was a toddler when her parents split... and her mom moved a new man into their home who was a, quote, "abusive full-blown heroin addict with a criminal record."

She says, quote, "I was taught to believe that our lifestyle was normal and never to question it or complain, even when I was left alone for hours, sometimes days at a time, or when I was passed without warning to yet another relative."

As a child, Ashley was sexually abused by, quote, "an old man everyone knew" at a pizza place.  She says, quote, "He beckoned me into a dark, empty corner of the business and offered me a quarter for the pinball machine if I'd sit on his lap.

"He opened his arms, I climbed up, and I was shocked when he suddenly cinched his arms around me, squeezing me and smothering my mouth with his, jabbing his tongue deep into my mouth."

When Ashley was in middle school, her mom started dating the man she's now married to, Larry Strickland.  And she says she suffered abuse as a result of that relationship.

She says, quote, "Mom and pop were wildly sexually inappropriate in front of my sister and me... a horrific reality for me was that when pop was around I would have to listen to a lot of loud sex in a house with thin walls.

"I now know this situation is called covert sexual abuse."

Ashley doesn't reveal the family member who sexually abused her.  But the incident, coupled with everything else going on in her life, nearly drove her to suicide before she was even in her teens.

She says, quote, "I took to playing with mom's gun, trying to decide if it would be worth it to shoot myself.

"There were many days after school... I would expertly check the chamber, load bullets, give it a spin and with a jerk of my wrist click the chamber into place, cock the trigger and then hold the gun to my right temple.  To me, the way my family lived was already killing me."

Ashley also reveals that she was raped by a man in France when she was a 15-year-old aspiring model.

Naomi and Wynonna Judd are being pretty cool about all of this.  Wynonna says, quote, "The veil has been lifted.  Secrets keep you sick and families will heal once you get real."

And Naomi adds, quote, "I think it's key for us to spend time figuring our own reality.  Every unhappiness is tied to a story, and we have to go back and figure out our stories.  And then it's our stories that connect us."

Speaking about the book on yesterday's "Today" show, Ashley said, quote, "I'm very grateful for my mother's exquisitely gracious attitude toward my right to share my narrative.

"You know, the book is very honest [but] it's not necessarily accurate, because everyone in my family has their own perspective and their own experiences.  But it's very true for me."

(You can watch the interview here.)

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