Weinstein survivor, Ashley Judd: “Not all men are violent, but most men are silent”
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I am joined now by a Golden Globe nominated actress who is also a UN Goodwill Ambassador, a Harvard Senior Fellow and a New York Times best-selling author. Ashley Judd was named Time Magazine's Person of the Year in 2017 when she was one of the first high-profile women to make sexual assault allegations against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. Ashley Judd, good morning. It's a joy to be with you, Daryl. Thanks for having me. There are so many strings to your bow, Ashley. Actor, advocate, activist and I nearly don't know where to start but it's nearly incumbent on every Irish person to find out if there's an Irish link and whilst most of us will be familiar with your roles in films like Double Jeopardy, Heat and A Time to Kill, you actually have quite a good connection to Ireland in the form of a little band called U2.
Ever heard of them?
That little band, those four boys who played in a garage when they were teenagers. You know, something really sweet is when Bono was presented with the Music Cares Humanitarian of the Year, the band asked if I would be kind enough to be the MC for the evening. So all these bands did tributes to U2's music and Ally really liked the boy bands. I was like cheering on all the women who were singing and she's like, I kind of got a thing for boy bands. And I was like, oh, that's right. You were teenagers when you met. It was very sweet. Yeah, the boy band from Ireland.
So your family, and obviously I'll speak about the world famous Judd family that people are still so fascinated and captured by. But your family, I know that you two helped inspire you, but your family's music also helped inspire you two at a key part of their career.
That is very sweet to you, both for you to know that and to acknowledge it. You know, a lot happened in my life, in my consciousness, in my spirit, in my intellectual awareness of the world. And I was really able to connect what I was learning about the world with the way I felt. And so I like to say I was 19 for three years. And it just seems like the age 19 was so eventful. Apartheid was happening, the legalized segregation and oppression by the state of South Africa of its black population and Joshua Tree. The U2 record came out, and when they were on the cover of a big music magazine in North America called Rolling Stone, I was sitting in an all-white house. I was in what's called a sorority.
It's a women's club in the university setting. you know, when I know better, I do better.
How did Ashley Judd’s early career and connection to U2 influence her activism?
So I was 19 years old and a part of an all white club reading about Joshua Tree. And all of this comes together because I had the physical LP and the liner notes, you know, where they give credit to the producer and they have all the lyrics written out. It just says support Amnesty International. And I was like, well, If the band likes Amnesty International, whatever that is, I'm going to find out more. And I went to my student center and the first thing I did with Amnesty International was an anti-apartheid candlelight. My awareness of racial oppression, both abroad and in my own life, being a part of an all-white club at that time. My best friend was black. She was the cook. She was the employee. And then I'm sitting there reading in this all-white club about Amnesty International.
And Larry Mullins Jr., who drums for the band, of course, said this list. listening to the Judds on the radio while the journalist from Rolling Stone is riding around Ireland with him. And I was like, this is all mind blowing. And I think my life just changed in a very significant way. And it did.
And you've had a remarkable life. And I know most recently you've been appointed as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Population Fund, which is the sexual and reproductive health agency of the UN. Congratulations on that. Is it very, very difficult to bear witness to the stories of gender-based violence and sexual exploitation that you are seeing in this role and other roles you've adopted?
I think the answer in a way is no, because suffering is everywhere.
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