Grace Pauline Kelley, the 28-year-old daughter of award-winning country music star Wynonna Judd, was arrested for allegedly stealing a church van and is being held at the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Pastor Kent Hart of Ground Zero Church of the Nazarene, said his church forgives Kelley and that members devoted a whole church service to praying for her.
“Ultimately, we forgive her on a personal level. I think that this whole situation presents an opportunity for the church to really be the church, the way the church is supposed to be,” Hart told Z95.1 morning show host Sherry Taylor (his aunt) in an interview on Dec. 2.
The alleged theft of the church van, which was totaled, occurred on Oct. 27, but Taylor said she only learned of the incident over the Thanksgiving holiday.
Noting that Jesus said to love, bless and pray for our enemies, Hart shared that the Sunday after the alleged theft, “We cut the livestream off and we devoted an entire service to Grace Kelley to pray for her and her family and then we prayed for each other. And it was a special service.”
Every Sunday since then, said Hart, the church has prayed for Grace Pauline Kelley’s “recovery, reconciliation, redemption, rehabilitation.”
Grace Pauline Kelley, Wynonna Judd’s Daughter, Remains in Custody
Wynonna Judd is the daughter of Naomi Judd, alongside whom she rose to fame in the 1980s as a member of the group, The Judds. The country music duo won multiple Grammy Awards, Country Music Awards, and charted numerous singles on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart.
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Naomi Judd passed away in 2022 after losing a battle against mental illness. Wynonna and her sister, actor Ashley Judd, gave a tribute to their mother one day later as The Judds were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Wynonna Judd has had an extremely successful solo career, with two of her albums being certified gold and then platinum by the RIAA and a third album being certified five times platinum. Grace Pauline Kelley is the daughter of Judd and her ex-husband, Arch Kelley III, and has reportedly had numerous run-ins with the law.
