Ashley Judd Reveals She Met Her Rapist For Restorative Justice Process

Ashley Judd took a unique approach to justice.

In a new interview with David Kessler on the “Healing” podcast, the actress revealed that she met with her rapist for a process of restorative justice.

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“When a man raped me in 1999, it was crazy-making because I knew better, I was very clear, my boundaries were intact, I was already an empowered, adult feminist woman,” Judd said. “And that this could happen under these circumstances was unconscionable, unforeseen, and yet I have had a restorative justice process with this person out of how replete my soul is today.”

Judd clarified that she “didn’t need his cooperation” or “for him to make amends” in order to heal.

“Because I had the opportunity to do my trauma work, to do my grief work, to do my healing work, to have all these shifts in my own consciousness and to bond in these female coalition spaces with other survivors,” she said, explaining that it was with all that and “with god’s help” that she began to “slowly approach him.”

She continued, “I tried to find him, he surfaced really easily and to make a long story short, we ended up in rocking chairs sitting by a creek together. And I said, ‘I’m very interested in hearing the story you’ve carried all these years.’ And we had a restorative-justice conversation about that.”

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Finally, Judd said, “I wanted to share that story because there are many ways of healing from grief, and it’s important to remind listeners that I didn’t need anything from him and it was just gravy that he made his amends and expressed his deep remorse. because healing from grief is an inside job. Or the journey with grief and trauma is an inside job.”

Judd has previously opened up about being a survivor of sexual abuse in her memoir, All That is Bitter and Sweet, and in 2017 was one of the first women to speak out against Harvey Weinstein, accusing him of attempting to derail her career after she denied his sexual advances.