Warning: The content below is graphic and includes discussion of suicide.

Ashley Judd says she felt empathy for her mother during the last moments of her life.

In 2022, the grief-stricken Heat star confirmed publicly that her mother, country music legend Naomi Judd , had died by suicide at age 76.

Over a year later, Ashley Judd reflected on the experience in detail with Anderson Cooper on CNN Audios All There Is podcast Wednesday.

I knew she was walking with mental illness, that her brain hurt and that she was suffering, Judd prefaced her story 9 minutes into the episode. But that didnt necessarily prepare me.

Judd then revealed to Cooper that she was the one who found her mother, and was the last person to speak to her.

My mothers death was traumatic and unexpected, because it was death by suicide and I found her, Judd said. My grief was in lockstep with trauma because of the manner of her death and the fact that I found her. What I needed to do first was vomit.

I held my mother as she was dying, she continued.