Suicides and Suicide Attempts

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Music

      Naomi Judd Died of a Self-Inflicted Gunshot Wound, Her Daughter Says

      by

      The actress Ashley Judd said in a television interview on Thursday that her mother was suffering from mental illness when she died last month.When Naomi Judd, the Grammy-winning country music singer, died last month, her daughter Ashley Judd said that she had lost her mother to the “disease of mental illness.” On Thursday, Ms. Judd was more candid, saying in a television interview that her mother had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at her home in Tennessee, and encouraging people who are distressed to seek help.Ms. Judd, an actress, told Diane Sawyer on “Good Morning America” that she was speaking out about her mother’s death because her family wanted to share the information before it became “public without our control.”“We’re aware that although grieving the loss of a wife and a mother, we are, in an uncanny way, a public family,” Ms. Judd said. “So that’s really the impetus for this timing. Otherwise, it’s obviously way too soon. So that’s important for us to say up front.”Naomi Judd and her other daughter, Wynonna Judd, dominated the country music charts in the 1980s as the mother-daughter duo the Judds. Naomi Judd, 76, died on April 30, a day before the duo was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.In the interview on Thursday, Ashley Judd said she was visiting her mother at her home outside Nashville when she died. Ms. Judd said she went outside to greet a friend of her mother’s who had stopped by, and when she went upstairs to tell her mother that the friend had arrived, she found her mother dead.“Mother used a firearm,” Ms. Judd said. “That’s the piece of information that we are very uncomfortable sharing, but understand that we’re in a position that if we don’t say it, someone else is going to.”Ashley Judd, left, joined her sister, Wynonna Judd, as the Judds were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame on May 1, a day after Naomi Judd’s death.Wade Payne/Invision/Associated PressSuicides have historically accounted for a majority of gun deaths in the United States.In 2020, 53 percent of suicides involved firearms, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Gun deaths reached the highest number ever recorded in the United States in 2020, when more than 24,000 people died by gun-related suicide and more than 19,350 people died by gun-related homicide.Ms. Judd said that she had suffered “grief and trauma” since her mother’s death, and that it was important to distinguish her mother from her mental illness.“Mom was a brilliant conversationalist, she was a star, she was an underrated songwriter,” Ms. Judd said. “And she was someone who suffered from mental illness, you know, and had a lot of trouble getting off the sofa, except to go into town every day to the Cheesecake Factory, where all the staff knew and loved her.”Naomi Judd was born in Ashland, a coal-mining town in northeastern Kentucky, and lived in California before moving to Nashville in 1979, as a single mother with two daughters.Ms. Judd supported her family by working as a nurse while pursuing a music career with Wynonna. Their break came in 1983, when Ms. Judd cared for a patient who turned out to be the daughter of an executive at RCA Records. A record deal, nine Country Music Association Awards, five Grammys and 14 No. 1 hits followed.Ashley Judd said in the interview that her mother was most alive when she was performing.“She was very isolated in many ways because of the disease,” Ms. Judd said. “And yet there were a lot of people who showed up for her over the years, not just me.”Ms. Judd encouraged people in distress to seek help and cited resources, including the national suicide hotline and the National Alliance for Mental Illness, a mental health organization that also has a hotline.“And so I want to be very careful when we talk about this today,” Ms. Judd said, “that for anyone who is having those ideas or those impulses, you know, to talk to someone, to share, to be open, to be vulnerable.”If you are having thoughts of suicide, in the United States call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 (TALK) or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources. Go here for resources outside the United States. More

    • 125 Shares149 Views

      in Television

      Song Yoo-jung, a South Korean Actress, Has Died at 26

      by

      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storySong Yoo-jung, South Korean Actress, Is Found Dead at 26No cause of death was disclosed, but the case followed a string of suicides by young entertainers in the country.Tiffany May and Jan. 25, 2021Updated 2:25 p.m. ETSong Yoo-jung in 2014. She appeared in several Korean television dramas and also acted in music videos.Credit…Dong-a Ilbo, via Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesA 26-year-old actress was found dead on Saturday in Seoul, South Korea, the latest loss of a young performer in the country’s entertainment industry, which has faced a reckoning over the mental health burden on its glamorous stars.The death of the actress, Song Yoo-jung, who appeared in several television dramas, was confirmed in a statement by the company that represented her, Sublime Artist Agency. The agency did not disclose the cause, but the suddenness of Ms. Song’s death brought to mind the series of suicides that has plagued Korean pop music in recent years.Alarms have long been raised over the pressures imposed by South Korean management companies on young entertainers, many of whom are groomed starting as teenagers to be pop idols. Their looks are closely scrutinized, and their tightly choreographed lives are often broadcast on social media platforms that expose them to both adulatory fan mail and hateful comments.For many, their time in the limelight is limited, if they ever reach star status. By their late 20s, some are considered replaceable.A number of the K-pop stars who have taken their own lives spoke of struggles with their mental health and the toll of cyberbullying. Ms. Song, an up-and-coming actress, had not mentioned publicly any such issues.Ms. Song began her acting career at 20 and appeared in commercials for Estée Lauder skin care products and for the ice cream chain Baskin-Robbins. In her breakout role in 2019, Ms. Song played a fresh-faced architecture student with a pixie cut, searching for her soul mate, in a web series called “Dear My Name.” She also acted in music videos.She was an advocate for people with disabilities, serving as ambassador for a South Korean group called Warm Accompaniment.Ms. Song’s agency called her “a great actress who performed with passion.” It did not immediately respond to requests for comment.The problem of suicide in South Korea is not restricted to the entertainment industry. The country has the highest suicide rate among the 37 developed nations that make up the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.But celebrity suicides, involving actors and others, have been a fixture in the South Korean news media over the past decade or more. In recent years, attention has fallen most sharply on deaths in the K-pop industry, one of the country’s most successful cultural exports.In 2017, a singer, Kim Jong-hyun, killed himself at 27 after leaving a note saying that he had been overcome by depression.In 2019, Sulli, a 25-year-old K-pop star, took her own life after she had complained about the relentless cyberbullying she faced upon joining a feminist campaign that advocated not wearing bras.About six weeks later, her friend Goo Hara, 28, also killed herself, leaving a handwritten note about her despair.Ms. Goo had tried to reason with online critics, asking them to refrain from vicious comments.“Public entertainers like myself don’t have it easy — we have our private lives more scrutinized than anyone else and we suffer the kind of pain we cannot even discuss with our family and friends,” she wrote.If you are having thoughts of suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (TALK) or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More