The singer-songwriter Jewel recently revealed on a podcast that her mother had “embezzled” more than $100 million from her, leaving her millions of dollars in debt, as reported by Fox News. During an episode of the “Verywell Mind Podcast,” which is focused on mental health, Jewel stated that her mother, who was her manager, had stolen her cash without her knowledge until she was in her thirties.
“I didn’t really understand what my mom was doing until I was 30-something. I was astonished to find out that she had embezzled all of my money, over $100 million,” Jewel shared. “At the age of 34, I realized I was $3 million in debt, my mom had taken it, and everything I thought my mom was, wasn’t what she was, which was a very difficult psychological issue to come to terms with,” she added.
Jewel’s debut album was released in 1995, when she was only 20 years old. In the years before she turned 30, she was able to achieve a gold record, platinum record, multi-platinum record, and diamond-selling record with her debut album.
On the same podcast, Jewel spoke about her mother, her parents’ relationship, and the abuse she endured as a child.
“My mom and dad got divorced when I was 8, and we went to live with my dad. I didn’t know at the time that it was because my mom didn’t want to be a mom, she had left us, and my dad had to take over raising us,” Jewel said.
The singer then went on to explain that when she moved in with her father, he became abusive and was an alcoholic.
“My dad was an unpredictable alcoholic who hit me. It was easy to identify him as the ‘bad guy.’ My mom seemed the complete opposite – she was gentle, never yelled, and never hit me. I didn’t recognize that I was being abused in other ways at the time,” she detailed.
In her 2016 book “Never Broken,” Jewel explained in detail how her mother controlled her finances, leading her into debt and taking the money she gained from her immense commercial success.
In the early 2000s, Jewel created a non-profit organization to concentrate on youth mental health and in 2023, she launched a mental health app called “Innerworld,” which aimed to provide an anonymous interactive platform for people to discuss mental health matters.