Country music icon accused of failing to protect 10-year-old against sex abuse

Grace Kelley, the daughter of country music legend Wynonna Judd, was in the headlines plenty last year, and none of it was good.

She was arrested three times, and things were not rough for her.

But now the 29-year-old is speaking out about her issues, and what she has to say is disturbing to say the least, and it doesn’t shine a good light on the country music legend.

Kelley told The Daily Progress that her stepfather, D.R. Roach, sexually abused her when she was 10 years old, and that Wynonna failed to protect her.

Judd divorced Roach in Sept. 2007, according to Taste of Country, after he was arrested on charges of sexually battery of a minor, but Kelley claims the truth had already come out during family counseling.

“I don’t want to talk bad about my mom, but we’ll just say she’s a good performer,” Kelley said. “She was never a mother.”

According to Taste of Country, Roach eventually pleaded guilty to criminal attempt to commit aggravated sexual battery and is still listed on Tennessee’s sex offender registry.

The good news coming from Kelley is that she said she is sober now, has embraced religion, and is living in Virginia where she is rebuilding her life.

Judd meanwhile is raising Kelley’s 3-year-old daughter.

Taste of Country noted that Judd told Oprah in 2010 that she went into “mama bear mode” when the accusations against her ex-husband emerged.

Kelley third arrest of 2024 came back on Oct. 27 in Albemarle County, Virginia. PEOPLE Magazine reported that Kelley was facing seven charges, including three counts of felony grand larceny for that incident. The site said she was also charged with driving without a license, destruction of property with intent, failure to use headlights and setting in motion a vehicle with intent to commit a crime.

Kelley was accused of stealing a Charlottesville area church’s van. A GoFundMe launched by the church to help pay for a new van said that the vehicle was “stolen from in front of our pastor’s homes by Grace Pauline Kelley.”

Kent Hart, the church’s pastor, reportedly chased Kelley down when she was pulling out of his driveway in the van.

Kelley also had some disturbing run-ins with the law earlier in 2024.

She was arrested in Georgia in August and charged with fleeing or attempting to elude a police officer, driving with a suspended/revoked license and not using motorcycle equipment properly, per PEOPLE.

She was also reportedly arrested in Alabama in April and she was accused of exposing “her breasts and lower body” along a busy highway there.