However, actress and activist Ashley Judd seems to have forgotten her 2010 speech that compared coal mining to rape, as she stands poised to join the 2014 race for senate.

In her 2010 speech to the National Press Club in Washington, Judd called mountaintop removal mining "the state-sanctioned, federal government-supported, coal industry-operated rape of Appalachia”

The comments were not taken kindly by many in Kentucky at the time – the US’ third-biggest coal-producing state with an industry employing more than 19,000 people.

Angry coal supporters hung signs with a semi-nude photo of Judd that read, "Ashley makes a living removing her top. Why can't coal miners?" to mock her activism against the mining procedure.

Judd responded to the controversy by saying she "expected to be attacked personally" because "the coal companies are cunning, callous and greedy”

The actress has not announced a campaign yet, but appears poised to launch one in the next few months.

Judd spent her childhood in eastern Kentucky and attended the University of Kentucky.

As a political candidate, her position on coal could soften and evolve as she tries to topple senate minority leader Mitch McConnell.

The county’s top elected official told CQ Roll Call he had deep doubts about Judd.

“Judd would have to change her stance on coal to win any of the eastern Kentucky coal-producing counties in a state wide election. She needs these counties to win,” Pike County Judge-Executive Wayne T. Rutherford, a Democrat, said in statement to CQ Roll Call.

“If she would change her views on coal mining,” he added, “she could win these counties.”

Coal mining has proven to be something of an Achilles’ heel for Democrats in Kentucky and could be even more problematic this election as Obama pushes coal to the forefront of his candidacy.