During an interview on SiriusXM's Radio Andy, country music superstar Wynonna Judd told host Andy Cohen that she recently met her biological brother Michael for the first time.
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"I met my brother yesterday. I have a brother I've never met and I called him. He lives in Kentucky and his name is Michael and I called him on his birthday and I said, 'hi,' and I have it on tape. I say tape. Cause that's where I come from. And I have the recording, Andy of me saying, 'hi, uh, this is your sister.' And I've never said that before. And I'm going to put it in the middle of a song somewhere. That's just the way I work," Judd said. "I met my brother yesterday. He's 53, I'm 56 years old. And my father died before I met him. And that's part of my testimony."
Charles Jordan, the biological father of Michael and Wynonna, died in 2000. Wynonna (born Christina Claire Ciminella) grew up believing her biological father was Michael Ciminella, who married her mother, Naomi Judd, after Jordan abandoned Naomi when she was pregnant with Wynonna. Ciminella is the biological father of Wynonna's half-sister, actress Ashley Judd. (Naomi Judd divorced Ciminella in 1972 and married Larry Strickland in 1989.)
The country singer told Cohen she didn't find out the truth about her father until the early '90s, when she was pregnant her son Elijah.
"I was 30 years old and I found out part of my life... this man who was my biological father is not. [He's] Ashley's father. I had a choice. I had to decide whether I was better or bitter. In music, that's what we do. We talk about the hard stuff...That's what country music is. We're stories about real life."
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Wynonna and Naomi Judd rose to fame in the 1980s as a mother-daughter singing duo with hits such as "Mama He's Crazy," "Grandpa (Tell Me 'Bout the Good Old Days), "Rockin' With the Rhythm of the Rain," "Girls Night Out" and "Love Can Build a Bridge."
The duo stopped touring regularly in 1991 following Naomi's Hepatitis C diagnosis, though they have reunited for special concerts. Following the duo's farewell tour, Wynonna launched a successful solo career with hits such as "No One Else on Earth," "I Saw the Light," "She is His Only Need" and "Tell Me Why."
In 2011, the Judds began starring in their own reality series on the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). In 2018, the duo was the subject on the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum's Dream Chasers exhibit.
Naomi and Wynonna Judd are the subjects of a new music anthology series titled Icon. Variety reports that the one-hour Fox docu-series will focus on the true stories behind music legends.
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