Musician Jewel is opening up about her rocky relationship with her mother, Lenedra Carroll, whom she claims stole millions of dollars from her.
“I didn’t really realize what my mom was until I was 30-something. I woke up and realized she embezzled all of my money, over $100 million,” the 48-year-old “You Were Meant for Me” songstress, whose full name is Jewel Kilcher, said during a Monday, March 20, episode of the “Verywell Mind” podcast. “And then as I started investigating the truth about what my mom had told me in my life versus what was true, I had realized that pretty much everything I formed my reality on was fiction.”
She added: “[I was] 34 years old [when I] realized I’m $3 million in debt, realize my mom stole it, realize everything I thought my mom was, isn’t what she was, [it is a] very difficult psychological thing to come to terms with.”
The Utah native’s complex relationship with her mother stems back to watching her parents get divorced when she was younger.
“I mean, it’s a complex issue, but my mom used to [be] this heroic figure. My mom and dad got divorced when I was 8, and we went to live with my dad,” Jewel recalled to host Amy Morin during the podcast episode. “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. I would hitchhike 500 miles to go see her. I’d show up on her doorstep. She was the opposite of my dad. My dad was this volatile alcoholic that hit me, very easy to identify [as a] ‘bad guy.’ My mom seemed like the opposite. She was calm, she was soft, she never yelled, obviously never hit me.”
She continued: “I didn’t realize I was being abused in another way at the time. If you asked me when I was 9 to maybe even in my 30s, I would’ve thought I had a supportive figure. Looking back, what was actually happening is my mom, let’s say when I would show up on her doorstep, she would say, ‘Your mind is so powerful. Our minds are only tap, 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.’ That is such an abusive, effed up thing to say, but I felt so loved. What it actually was was my mom didn’t want to stay there and be with me, and she babysat me by having me watch light bulbs. So, sometimes the appearance of an attached figure isn’t what it seems.”
Jewel ultimately moved out of her family’s home when she was a teenager to escape her father, Atz Kilcher, who was allegedly physically abusive.
“I knew when I moved out at 15 that statistically girls like me end up repeating the cycle we were raised by,” the “Down So Long” musician — who shares son Kase, 11, with ex-husband Ty Murray — told Forbes in September 2016. “Statistically I should have ended up on drugs, in an abusive relationship or on a pole somewhere. I did not want to be a statistic. So I looked at the idea of nature versus nurture, and thought, ‘If I received poor nurture as a child, could I re-nurture myself and get to know my actual nature?’ My life goal at that moment became to learn how to avoid being a human full of holes, but a whole human instead.”
Jewel, who briefly experienced homelessness after leaving home, did not further reveal when Carroll allegedly stole her money. The Never Broken author’s mother has not publicly responded to the claims. However, Jewel has since been candid about learning to move on.
“The amount of trauma in my life, the amount of neglect, moving out at 15, the amount of adult situations I was in, I had a very scary life. I had a very terrifying life,” the “My Father’s Daughter” artist said on Monday. “I had a life where adults weren’t safe people, being in connection to people wasn’t safe. Learning how to remove myself is how I found safety. And so I had a lot to work on. … But for whatever reason I was very determined that if I could observe and get very curious and look at myself somewhat scientifically, and believe my body, believe that what my body was telling me was the truth and that if I could come up with a exercise that got my body to feel different, that was a real barometer.”
If you or someone you know are experiencing domestic violence, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 for confidential support. To report child abuse, consult the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Child Welfare Information Gateway for state-specific reporting phone numbers.
Us Weekly has reached out for comment.
