Ashley is the daughter of Naomi and sister of Wynonna Judd, country music stars. When Ashley was four, her mom divorced Ashley's father, Michael Ciminella. Two years later, her mother Naomi packed up, lock, stock and barrel, took her kids out of L.A., and moved the family to central Kentucky. Widely known in Hollywood as being extremely intelligent, Ashley has carefully managed her career to become a critics darling.

During what her mom refers to as the "U-Haul-it years", Ashley attended a series of twelve different schools in thirteen years, an experience which made her adept at adapting. Ashley learned to play the fiddle when she was in the third grade, and she has a beautiful voice, which she shares with family and friends.

Naomi and Wynonna were rocketed to fame as the country duo. Ashley was afforded the chance to attend the University of Kentucky, where she studied French and graduated with Phi Beta Kappa honors in 1990. She toyed with the idea of volunteering with the Peace Corps in Africa, but decided to move on to bigger and better things. Following her singer-sister's advice, Ashley went directly to Los Angeles at age 23, where her impressive self-assurance got her an immediate agency contract. In the early 90's, she was a drama student at Playhouse West School and Repertory Theater in Los Angeles.

This netted a movie part at her first audition, in "Kuffs" and she went on to the title role in "Ruby in Paradise", for which she received a New York Film Critics Circle award for Best Actress and a Sundance Film Festival Independent Spirit award. Ashley accepted recurring roles in the quality television shows "Star Trek: The Next Generation", and "Sisters", and a part in the TV movie "Till Death Do Us Part". She received both an Emmy nomination and a Golden Globe nomination for her portrayal of Marilyn Monroe in "Norma Jean and Marilyn".

Ashley has recently purchased her dream house, a hundred-year-old home in Tennessee. She has big plans for its renovation, and states, "I'm modeling it after C.S. Lewis' 'Chronicles of Narnia', with cubbyholes and secret passageways, old gun cabinets and medicine chests built of chestnut". Ashley wants her dream home to be this way all because it was the first book that was ever read to her as a child. Ashley is very athletic and enjoys rock climbing, hiking and running.

Ashley has inherited beauty, brains and talent, and her own unique rural-urban sophistication. This rags-to-riches fairy tale heroine, has taken herself to the heights of the acting profession. Ashley is poised for Hollywood greatness.