Country music star Wynonna Judd says her daughter cut off contact after Alabama arrests: ‘Meth is a bitch’

Wynonna Judd channels heartbreak into her music while raising her granddaughter while her daughter Grace Kelley serves time in a Virginia prison.

The 62-year-old country music star told PEOPLE in a new cover story that the songs on her album “The Hard Truth” were partly inspired by Kelley, 30, who has a history of drug use and is currently serving a 15-month sentence.

“I miss her. I miss her desperately and I missed out on a lot of years because of drug addiction,” Judd said.

She legally adopted Kelley’s 4-year-old daughter Kaliyah and is raising her with her husband of 14 years, musician and producer Cactus Moser, 69, in their home near Franklin, Tennessee.

Judd told PEOPLE that she spent half a million dollars on treatment programs for her daughter’s meth addiction.

“Meth is a bitch,” she said.

“It’s unlike anything I’ve ever experienced, and I just can’t believe it. But these songs come from this dark, deep, dark place…And you think you can’t make it, but you do somehow by the grace of God.”

Judd said her daughter cut off all contact about a year ago.

“As the mother of an addict, I can tell you this: When the money stops, they usually cut you off because the money is gone. And I did everything I could,” she said.

In August, Judd told PEOPLE that she learned through social media that Kelley was in jail and requested temporary release to give birth at a hospital. The request was refused.

“I heard about it on TikTok,” Judd said.

“Isn’t that crazy? I laid there and I was shocked, as you can imagine. And I cried and cried and cried and cried, because I have another grandbaby, I think.”

Kelley has had several encounters with law enforcement since 2016, when she was arrested for possession of methamphetamine.

In 2018, she was sentenced to eight years in prison for leaving a court-ordered drug recovery program, which violated her probation, according to PEOPLE. She was released on parole in 2019.

Kelley was arrested again in 2021 for a parole violation. She gave birth to Kaliyah in 2022 while incarcerated, just weeks before her grandmother Naomi Judd committed suicide in April of that year.

She was released from prison in December, but was behind bars again the following year for violating her parole and violating a restraining order, according to The Daily Beast.

As of 2024, Kelley has been convicted three times.

She served 60 days in an Alabama prison after pleading guilty to two charges stemming from exposing her breasts on Interstate 65 and refusing to comply with an officer.

She also was convicted of obstructing government operations and grand theft for stealing a church van in Virginia, according to court records.

Kelley began serving his current 15-month sentence in Virginia’s Rockingham County Jail earlier this year after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of driving with a suspended or revoked license following an October 2025 arrest, PEOPLE reported.

In previous interviews, Kelley had claimed that her problems began when she was molested as a child by her stepfather, Judd’s second husband, DR Roach.

She also alleged to PEOPLE in August 2025 that Judd then forced her to go to therapy with him.

Roach was arrested in 2007 and charged with sexual battery of a minor, after which Judd filed for divorce.

Roach’s victim has never been publicly identified.

He is listed on the Tennessee sex offender registry and did not respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.

Judd declined to comment to the publication on Grace’s claims about Roach.

Despite the estrangement and legal issues, Judd told PEOPLE that she has two wishes for her daughter: that she “finds healing” and that she “stop blaming me.”

“She’s 30 years old. There comes a time when you can no longer blame. You have to question yourself,” she says.