Jewel Claims Embezzlement from Mother Left Her $3M In Debt

Jewel says she was $3 million in debt after her manager 'robbed her blind' during the highest point of her career.

The singer’s mother Lenedra was managing Jewel; over the years, she cleaned out $100 million from the four-time Grammy-nominated performer. “I didn’t really realize what my mom was until I was 30-something. I woke up and realized she embezzled all my money, over $100 million,” Jewel recalls on the podcast “The Verywell Mind” with therapist Amy Morin.

The “Who Will Save Your Soul” singer has sold over 27 million records worldwide. The moment of realization was traumatizing for Jewel. “Thirty-four years old, realize I’m $3 million in debt, realize my mom stole it, realize everything I thought my mom was, isn’t what she was, very difficult psychological thing to come to terms with,” she admits.

The 48-year-old admitted at that moment, her reality was boggled because she had realized everything she knew about her mom was essentially a lie.

“My mom and dad got divorced when I was 8, and we went to live with my dad,” she says, going on to explain that her dad was not the best person to be supervising children. Jewel wanted to be with her mother as a young girl.

“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.” When she finally met up with her mom, she recalls, “She was calm, soft, never yelled, obviously never hit me. And I didn’t realize I was being abused in another way at the time.”

Unlike her father. “My dad was this volatile alcoholic that hit me, very easy to identify ‘bad guy.’ My mom seemed like the opposite.”

The singer revealed that her mom was never truly there to help her but she was so enamored with having her mom around that she couldn’t see it. She gave an example.

“Let’s say when I would show up on her doorstep, and 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.'”

Jewel discussed her parents and upbringing in her 2016 memoir, “Never Broken.” “My mom isn’t a villain,” she wrote. “My dad isn’t a villain. People get some things right and people get some things wrong.”

She also shared that now looking back at it, her mom was never there for her.

“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 has since gotten over the traumatic betrayal through therapy and has moved on in her career.