Ashley Judd Reveals Why She Met With Man Who Raped Her

Ashley Judd has revealed that she met with the man who raped her for a "restorative-justice conversation" — after she worked through the trauma.

On Tuesday, Judd appeared on the "Healing with David Kessler" podcast, where she recalled trying to find her rapist after the 1999 incident. The 54-year-old actress said the man, whom she did not name, "surfaced very easily" during her search.

"To make a long story short, we ended up in rocking chairs sitting by a creek together," she said on the podcast, as quoted by People. "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."

She added, "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."

Host David Kessler explained that some "may not realize" that grief also applies to the fallout of being raped or assaulted because "you lose innocence."

"One loses safety. I lost a sense of trust," Judd said, before adding that through her recovery, she has "regained myself."

Looking back, Judd said the 1999 incident was "crazy-making" because she "knew better." At that point, she had already considered herself an "empowered, adult feminist woman" and her boundaries were intact.

"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," she added.

The "High Crimes" star also shared that during her conversation with her rapist, she "didn't need his cooperation," "for him to make amends" or "for him to do anything differently."

"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," Judd explained.

While advocating for abortion rights in 2019, Judd said that she is "a three-time rape survivor" and that one such incident led to a pregnancy.

"I'm very thankful I was able to access safe and legal abortion," she said at the Women in the World summit in New York. "Because the rapist, who is a Kentuckian, as am I, and I reside in Tennessee, has paternity rights in Kentucky and Tennessee. I would've had to co-parent with my rapist."

It was unclear at the time whether the rape resulted in a conviction.

In her tribute to her late mom Naomi Judd for Mother's Day in May, the actress asked everyone to honor their mothers "for more than her labor and sacrifice," adding: "Honor her for her talents and dreams. Honor her by demanding a world where motherhood, everywhere, is safe, healthy – and chosen."