Ashley Judd’s memoir reveals a sad, sobering and often desperate look into the home life of her famous family in her new memoir, “All That Is Bitter & Sweet.”
Scheduled for general release today, April 5, 2011 sneaked excerpts show how Judd counters the notion, made famous by her mother, Naomi, that the Judd family put the fun in dysfunctional. After her father moved out, Ashley says, her mother began another relationship, with a man who was an abusive heroin addict.
“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,” Judd writes. The problems for the actress didn’t just occur inside the house, as she details a sexual assault she suffered while getting pizza.
“An old man everyone knew beckoned me into a dark, empty corner of the business and offered me a quarter for the pinball machine at the pizza place if I’d sit on his lap,” Judd writes. “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.”
Sounds like scary stuff – better fasten your seat belt before cracking open your copy.
