CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Grace Kelley, the estranged daughter of county music legend Wynonna Judd, believes her latest arrest opened the door to a new lease on life in Charlottesville.

Appearing on the Schilling Show on Thursday afternoon, the 28-year-old Kelley detailed how the pastor and wife who’s van she was arrested for stealing have helped her get her life back together after years of abuse, homelessness and arrests.

Kelley laid much of the blame for those troubles at the feet of her mother.

“Anything and everything that you would think would be a celebrity’s daughter’s life, was not,” Kelley said. “It’s so messed up. My story is so messed up. The things that my mom did to me, I don’t even know how to explain it.”

Kelley was less than 10 when she alleges her stepfather sexually molested her. She said, after that became public, her relationship with her mother was never the same.

“After that happened, she looked at me differently,” Kelley said.

It was at that point that Kelley said she was sent to various youth facilities around the country, sometimes being forcefully transported.

“I literally walked out of school one day and was snatched up and blindfolded and put in the back of a van,” Kelley said. “My mother paid transporters. She had me transported to Utah. She had me transported to Arizona. She had me transported to Alabama. … As a child, I didn’t have anybody fighting for me.”

Attempts to get a response from Wynonna Judd were not immediately successful.

Kelly’s winding road eventually brought her to Charlottesville. In December, 2024, she was arrested for stealing a church van. Kelley said she had stowed away in the van and fell asleep, clutching a wooden cross. When she woke up, she didn’t know where she was, so she drove off with the van.

She was a caught and charged with three felony counts of grand larceny.

But Kelley told Schilling, that moment became a positive turning point in her life. She said the church’s pastor, Kent Hart, and Hart’s wife, have supported her since her arrest, even welcoming her into the church.

“They reminded me there’s still good out here,” Kelley said.

Now, Kelley said she’s focused on living right and has written a memoir, recounting her troubled and painful childhood. She hopes to get it published.

“It’s a tell all, literally from the day I was born,” Kelley said.

 

Hear the full interview here.