Ashley Judd reveals she’s been trolled for putting on weight: ‘Misogyny is a real thing in our culture’

‘You try being a once ultra-fit woman who’s 54 and put on some weight,’ Judd said

Ashley Judd has revealed that she has been trolled due to a recent weight gain.

The actor, 54, said the weight gain came after her mother’s death earlier this year and a leg fracture this summer.

Judd’s leg fracture occurred less than two years after the actor shattered her leg in four places during a hiking excursion in the Democratic Republic of Congo in February 2021.

“I’ve put on some weight and I’m sure people are talking about it but I don’t pay any attention to it because I know it’s a temporary condition and the weight will come off when it’s supposed to,” Judd told UCLA professor Dr. Jonathan Flint as part of an Open Mind lecture on Wednesday (26 October) as per The Hollywood Reporter.

“It’s none of my business what people think of me,” she added.

“I have a healthy boundary about it but I also know that misogyny is a real thing in our culture. You try being a once ultra-fit woman who’s 54 and put on some weight. That is going to spark some very sexist conversations by both men and women and others in our culture.”

Elsewhere in the discussion, which was put on by the Friends of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA, Judd explained that her most recent leg fracture was due to “clumsiness”.

“It was what it was. Clumsiness is associated with grief, and there were other people in our family, after mom died, who fell down stairs and had accidents, and that’s just what mine happened to look like,” Judd explained.

“It really allowed me to grieve. It really allowed me to stop what I was working on at that moment and to grieve.”

Judd’s mother, Naomi, died on 30 April this year and Judd later revealed that it was she who discovered her mother’s body.

Ashley Judd, Naomi Judd and Wynonna Judd (Getty Images)

“The day that my beloved mother died by suicide, I had so many people to call. There were five women who were with me within moments of my sharing that tragic news with them, and they are my chosen sisters,” Judd told Flint.

Judd’s sister, Wynonna, cleared up rumours of a rift between the pair earlier this week, telling NBC’s Today program that the sisters are “closer then they’ve been in a long time”.

She added: “We love each other and we show up for each other. We don’t agree on much but we support one another.”

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