Jewel's Mom Allegedly Stole $100 Million From Her

The singer revealed in a new interview on the Verywell Mind Podcast that when she was 34, "I woke up and realized [my mom] had embezzled all of my money. Over $100 million." She added that before, she "didn't really realize" what her former manager had been up to until the money was gone and she was "$3 million in debt."

Jewel also told host Amy Morin that it was a "very difficult psychological thing to come to terms with," because she realized her own mom "isn't what she was," and that she could do this to her. She also claimed that she later found out the real reason she lived with her dad after her parents divorced when she was eight.

“Nobody told me it’s because my mom didn’t want to be a mom. She left us, and so my dad took over raising us. I didn’t know that at the time.”

She's spoken of her parents before in her memoir Never Broken. In the interview, she claimed that her mom would have left her alone as a kid with a lightbulb to babysit. “Let’s say when I would show up on her doorstep, she would say, ‘Your mind is so powerful. Our minds are only tapped, we use like 10% of our brain power. Our minds are so powerful and I think you, Jewel, are so powerful that I think you could sit here and stare at this light bulb and you might be able to get it to turn off with your mind.'"

She said this was because "my mom didn’t want to stay there and be with me, and she babysat me by having me watch light bulbs."

Jewel doesn't elaborate on how her mom stole the money or what she was left with, but she does describe her work to get people mental health services through her app, Innerworld. "I was around predators, I had a very scary life. I had a very terrifying life. And I had a life where adults weren't safe people, being in connection to people wasn't safe." But, she adds, "that's also why I formed our youth foundation because there's real hope for kids like that."

Photo via Steve Jennings/Getty.